Researchers at Penn State have developed a reusable material designed to solve both problems at once. The material is a thermoreversible semiconducting ionic biogel, meaning it becomes liquid when gently heated so it can move through hair and reach the scalp, then returns to a stable gel as it cools, keeping its conducting and semiconducting character.

Thanks to special 3D-printed scaffolding trays designed by experts at Cincinnati Children’s, researchers can now produce larger versions of functional human gut organoids twice as fast as previous methods—and these organoids grow their own nerve cells.