Concrete is the defining material of the Anthropocene and takes a terrible toll on the climate. Martha Henriques goes in search of the ways it could be better for the climate. If you stroll between ...

The most polluting part of a building is hiding underfoot. Floors account for more than 40% of most multi-story buildings’ total mass, and many of the surfaces that hold up office floors and ...

Except for water, concrete is the most consumed material in the world by mass. With an estimated yearly consumption approaching 30 billion tonnes, concrete outpaces the per capita production of any ...

While it doesn't burn in the conventional sense, concrete chips and flakes when exposed to fire, for the same reasons that firewood crackles. Water trapped inside the material vaporizes when subjected ...

Wet concrete has been poured into buildings, roads, bridges and more for centuries. Structures using concrete have survived wars and natural disasters, outlasting many of the civilizations that built ...

It's not just airplane wings that need to stay ice-free in the winter – it's also pretty darn important that the runways not be icy, either. With that in mind, an Iowa State University team led by ...

Concrete is probably as close to a wonder material as we’re ever going to get. It’s extremely strong, cheap, versatile, and long-lasting. The Romans used it to build many of their oldest surviving ...

When you break your leg, it eventually knits itself back together. Osteoblast cells produce minerals that create the structure of new bone, turning fragments back into a whole. Why, thought ...