Read the full article here: ACS Macro Lett. 10, 671 (2021). by G. Creusen, R. Schmidt and A. Walther DNA mechanosensors offer unique properties for mechano-adaptive and self-reporting materials, such as programmable bond strength and geometrical strain response, tunable fluorescent strain sensing, interfacing to biological systems, and the ability to store mechanical information. However, the facile incorporation of advanced DNA motifs into polymer networks and achieving robu

Read the full article here: Soft Matter 15, 5401, (2021). by J. Heckel, F. Battia, R. Mathers and A. Walther Out-of-equilibrium phase transitions driven by dissipation of chemical energy are a common mechanism for morphological organization and temporal programming in biology. Inspired by this, dissipative self-assembly utilizes chemical reaction networks (CRNs) that consume high-energy molecules (chemical fuels) to generate transient structures and functionality. While a wid

Read the full article here: Adv. Funct. Mater. 2102677 (2021). by F. Lossada, B. Zhu and A. Walther Bioinspired nanocomposites with high levels of reinforcement hold great promise for future, green lightweight, and functional engineering materials, but they suffer from slow, tedious, and nonscalable preparation routes, that typically only lead to very thin films. A rapid and facile dry powder processing technique is introduced to generate bioinspired nanocomposite materials a

Read the full article here: ChemSystemsChem (2021). by Wuerbser, M. A., Schwarz, P., Heckel, J., Bergmann, A. M., Walther, A., Boekhoven, J., In chemically fueled supramolecular materials, molecular self-assembly is coupled to a fuel-driven chemical reaction cycle. The fuel-dependence makes the material dynamic and endows it with exciting properties like adaptivity and autonomy. In contrast to the large work on the self-assembly of small molecules, we herein designed a dibloc

Read the full article here: ACS Nano 15, 3, 5043 (2021). by F. Lossada, D. Jiao, D. Hoenders and A. Walther Nacre’s natural design consists of a perfect hierarchical assembly that resembles a brick-and-mortar structure with synergistic stiffness and toughness. The field of bioinspired materials often provides attractive architecture and engineering pathways which allow to explore outstanding property areas. However, the study of nacre-mimetic materials should not be limited t

Read the full article here: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 60, 2 (2021). by X. Fan and A. Walther Artificial temporal signaling systems, which mimic living out-of-equilibrium conditions, have made large progress. However, systems programmed by enzymatic reaction networks in multicomponent and unknown environments, and using biocompatible components remain a challenge. Herein, we demonstrate an approach to program temporal pH signals by enzymatic logic gates. They are realized by an en