Plasticland: Where a New World Comes True

Books, scientific journals, Sci-Fi novels, and even educational TV shows speak to us of a new world where devices help people in everyday life by expanding our action and sensing capabilities. The borderline between fantasy and science moves day by day because of technological contributions and research activity already focused on new needs, and new applications are growing at an impressive rate. Some examples are bio-inspired robots that will take care of repetitive or even dangerous activities, active prostheses that will help with the rehabilitation of patients, smart textiles for health monitoring or that will deliver drugs on the basis of well established protocols, or even artifi cial tissues and organs that will eliminate the need for donors and the risk of tissue rejection in patients with transplants. Applications like these will be possible largely because of new polymeric materials that are becoming available due to interdisciplinary research activities in material sciences, engineering, mechanics, and biology. These new materials are not passive tools or simple coating elements. Instead, they are able to sense external stimuli and react to them (change shape).