Safety concerns following the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 led to building safety codes that limited the use of wood in construction. While it was one of the first and most common materials used to make ...

Researchers in China have developed a new way to make life-like artificial wood on a large scale from a polymer called resol, which is very similar to lignin (the compound found in natural wood). The ...

Can you imagine a smartphone with a wooden touchscreen? Or a house with wooden windows? Probably not—unless you've heard of transparent wood. Made by modifying wood's natural structure, this material ...

Transparent wood is an idea that scientists have been working on for some time. Home builders see it as a new option for houses because wood is stronger than glass—it would not shatter if struck by an ...

Katie Hudnall’s interest in woodmaking stems from her childhood hobby of putting things together and taking them apart. “I was not a very good student when I was a kid, but I was good at drawing and ...

Thirty years ago, a botanist in Germany had a simple wish: to see the inner workings of woody plants without dissecting them. By bleaching away the pigments in plant cells, Siegfried Fink managed to ...