A material that can respond flexibly to external environment with freely adjustable properties of softness, hardness and size, shows promising potential for developing smart materials used in industrial or protective equipment. All this was once imaginary to many but it has been discovered by a CUHK physics team, using a unique network structure of packed particles to explore the topology of materials at the point of transition to elasticity.

High energy batteries, in cell phones and laptops, can blow up in your face. Research around that problem surfaced with a solution from a surprisingly different field. It is a soluble polymer used in skin cream that can also stabilise battery output. Soon, putting a phone on your cheek will be as gentle on your skin as moisturizer.