BBC Four "How It Works" by Mark Miodownik

. We have added five clips from the BBC Four mini-series "How It Works" presented by Mark Miodownik. The series tell us how we transform materials, and materials transform the world, and reveals the secret alchemy of material science. The clips  explore metals, plastics, ceramics, with particular emphasis on graphene, semiconductors, aluminium and Bakelite.

Click here to view the videos from the BBC Four website
[Only available to viewers in the UK]

Graphene can distil alcohol - study

Membranes based on the "miracle material" graphene can be used to distil alcohol, according to a new study in Science journal. 

Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from the University of Manchester were awarded 2010's Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery, outlined in a scientific paper in 2004.

New interactive Flash Movies released from the DoITPoMs.

We have published a number of newly released interactive Flash Movies from the DoITPoMs Teaching and Learning Packages (TLPs)at the University of Cambridge. The DoITPoMS TLPs each focus on a common materials science topic met with in undergraduate teaching and learning. Many of theTLPs include video clips from experiments, along with standard features such as an introduction, summary, questions and answers, references for further study, and links to the MATTER Glossary of Materials Science.

The animations are now available for downloading and running from your local system under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-Alike license.

Click here to view the Teaching and Learning Packages (TLPs) from the DoITPoMs.

CORE-Materials site is restored now

The CORE-Materials site was affected by a power outage at the University of Liverpool, following a major environmental issue in the Brownlow Hill Building machine room overnight. The service is now restored back to normal. 

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the unavailability of CORE-Materials over last three days.

University of Liverpool major power outage on 7 of October 2011

Following a major environmental issue in the Brownlow Hill Building machine room overnight, CORE-Materials and other our servers were affected by a power outage at the University of Liverpool and will hopefully be restored on Monday.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused by the unavailability of these services over the days ahead.

Quasicrystals

The 2011 Nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to Professor Daniel Shechtman for his discovery of the structure of quasicrystals. We are putting together a small package of open educational resources relating to quasicrystals for those of you wishing to use them in your teaching or learning.

Atomic model of Ag-Al quasicrystal
By AMES lab., US Department of Energy
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons