Spider silk is a protein material that exhibits extraordinary and nontrivial properties such as
the ability to soften and decrease its length by up to∼ 60% upon exposure to high humidity …

The submersion of a polymer network with a high density of hydrogen bond based cross-
links in an aqueous bath results in the formation of a rubberlike hydrogel. The cross-links …

Stimuli‐responsive hydrogels that swell under constraints such as spatial geometric
confinement are employed in many applications, including biomedical devices and …

Hydrogels possess excellent and interesting properties that may be harnessed for future
applications, especially in soft machines. However, this is not achievable if the adhesion …

A series of networks is introduced with systematically varied network heterogeneity and high
overall values of average glass transition temperature (T g), based on polymerization of rigid …

β-Sheet protein structures and domains are widely found in biological materials such as silk.
These assemblies play a major role in the extraordinary strength and unique properties of …

The vitreous body is a viscoelastic gel-like network that fills the space between the lens and
the retina in the eye. With aging, the vitreous undergoes a liquefaction process in which …

Hydrogels are versatile and environmentally sensitive materials having appealing and
tunable physical-chemical-mechanical properties, similar to those encountered in natural …

Mechanical to electrical energy conversion is a well-established energy transduction
approach. However, cases in which a mechanical energy source is not available call for new …

We present a new approach to measuring cell-generated forces from the deformations of
elastic microspheres embedded within multicellular aggregates. By directly fitting the …