"Scientists Discover First New Polymers in 20 Years."
No, not quite. New polymers are developed by the dozen in materials science nowadays!
I think I see where the author got mixed up though: reversible thermosets would be quite novel in of themselves, and you could argue most breakthrough developments in thermosets/thermoplastics are from decades ago. But this is far from the only polymer family there is.
It's a shame. Clearly the author is way out of his depth here (e.g. 'Polymers are essentially macromolecules made up of 10000 or more atoms'; 'the researchers (...) are now submitting their findings to Science'), but that's what science editors are there for.
On the other hand, The New York Times has a much better article [1] and reveals another twist: apparently the PI found the reaction by accident. Check it out, and shame on Mashable for spreading bad science.
No, not quite. New polymers are developed by the dozen in materials science nowadays!
I think I see where the author got mixed up though: reversible thermosets would be quite novel in of themselves, and you could argue most breakthrough developments in thermosets/thermoplastics are from decades ago. But this is far from the only polymer family there is.
It's a shame. Clearly the author is way out of his depth here (e.g. 'Polymers are essentially macromolecules made up of 10000 or more atoms'; 'the researchers (...) are now submitting their findings to Science'), but that's what science editors are there for.
On the other hand, The New York Times has a much better article [1] and reveals another twist: apparently the PI found the reaction by accident. Check it out, and shame on Mashable for spreading bad science.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/science/error-leads-ibm-re...