Posted on 10/14/2025 7:03:52 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
A US company has engineered a new type of wood that it says has up to 10 times the strength-to-weight ratio of steel, while also being up to six times lighter.
“Superwood” has just launched as a commercial product, manufactured by InventWood, a company co-founded by material scientist Liangbing Hu.
Over a decade ago, Hu set out on a quest to reinvent one of the oldest building materials known to humankind. While working at the University of Maryland’s Center for Materials Innovation, Hu, who’s now a professor at Yale, found innovative ways to re-engineer wood. He even made it transparent by removing part of one of its key components, lignin, which gives wood its color and some of its strength.
His real goal, however, was to make wood stronger, using cellulose, the main component of plant fiber and “the most abundant biopolymer on the planet,” according to Hu.
The breakthrough came in 2017, when Hu first strengthened regular wood by chemically treating it to enhance its natural cellulose, making it a better construction material.
SNIP
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Video at link.
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Like I always say, you can’t beat wood.
Does this come in pill form?
I wonder how easy (or not) it is to machine, glue, and paint.
I like the first three words: “A US company”.
With a name like Wu I expect the chicoms are already one step ahead of us
Didn’t read the whole thing (CNN delenda est) - does this new whizbang “wood”....burn?
Will termites leave it alone?
From the inimitable Taylor Swift on her newest recording released, “Wood.”
“...I ain’t got to knock on wood
Forgive me, it sounds cocky
He ah-matized me and openеd my eyes
Redwood tree, it ain’t hard to see
His lovе was the key that opened my thighs
Girls, I don’t need to catch the bouquet, mm
To know a hard rock is on the way....”
Poetry. Sheer poetry./s
Bkmk
I thought that is what Viagra did.
Are those the actual lyrics?
And to think that people let their 12 year old daughters listen to this stuff.
She later traded her patent for a handful of catnip. I guess she wasn’t that smart after all.
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