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A new plastic that "heals itself" has been designed, meaning your cracked phone screen or broken tennis racquet could mend its own wounds. The polymer automatically patches holes 3cm wide, 100 times bigger than before. Inspired by the human blood clotting system, it contains a network of capillaries that deliver healing chemicals to damaged areas ... But even the best self-healing plastics and polymers can only repair small-scale damage, the Science magazine authors note. "Although self-healing of microscopic defects has been demonstrated, the re-growth of material lost through catastrophic damage requires a regenerative-like approach," said Prof White. To fix larger...

Enlarge Image Cutting edge. After it was divided with a scalpel, a new polymer was able to heal itself, restoring most of its mechanical and electrical properties in 15 seconds. Credit: Benjamin Tee and Chao Wang Human skin is a special material: It needs to be flexible, so that it doesn't crack every time a user clenches his fist. It needs to be sensitive to stimuli like touch and pressure—which are measured as electrical signals, so it needs to conduct electricity. Crucially, if it's to survive the wear and tear it's put through every day, it needs to be...