Five Crazy New Man-Made Materials

What will they think of next? Aluminum bubble wrap! Molecular superglue! And how about that titanium foam? It's as simple as coating a piece of polyurethane foam with titanium, and then getting rid of the foam. Neat, but this next part is even better:

The exact properties depend on the porosity of the foam, but the results are strong and—most importantly—incredibly light. In fact, the material is just perfect for replacing bone: it has incredibly similar mechanical properties and, because it's porous, new bone can grow and around its structure, truly integrating the implant within the skeleton. Anything that gets us that much closer to a real-life Wolverine is okay in our book.

Read about five such brave new materials and what they may be good for at Gizmodo.