What’s light enough to balance on a dandelion, strong enough to fortify an airplane, and made of 99.99 percent air? The building material of the future, of course — at least, according to Boeing.
One hundred times lighter than styrofoam and similar in structure to human bone, this 3D microlattice could one day go into making super lightweight and fuel-efficient airplanes, cars, and spacecrafts. The honeycomb-like material could also be a real game-changer in the cutthroat world of elementary school egg drop challenges, as Sophia Yang of HRL Laboratories explains in the video above.
Now, if someone would just build a time machine out of this microlattice, I know a chubby little 5th grader who would be very interested in this technology.
