Thirty years ago, a botanist in Germany had a simple wish: to see the inner workings of woody plants without dissecting them. By bleaching away the pigments in plant cells, Siegfried Fink managed to ...

Bharat Baruah never expected his woodworking hobby to collide with his day job in the chemistry lab. But one question kept nagging him: What if the future of windows wasn’t glass—or plastic—but wood?

Can you imagine having a smartphone with a wooden touchscreen? Or a house with wooden windows? Probably not -- unless you've heard of transparent wood. Made by modifying wood's natural structure, this ...