The scientific method demands replication, and we've talked an awful lot about papers being published that can't be reproduced.
When it has been replicated it's theoretical science. But it's still a variant on the XKCD joke about how everything (including guns) kills cancer in vitro but that doesn't mean you can use it to cure cancer.
Lab-only experiment might clue the next person into a phenomenon that can make it out of the lab. But making it news when it hits the scientific journals has been a sore subject for a lot of people, and seems like it always will be, and that it might even get worse before it gets better. We call a lot of things 'science' that haven't followed the scientific method, and it's exasperating.
This is not the first time materials sciences people at UIUC have looked at self-healing materials. Twenty+ years ago they were looking at lacing concrete to repair small cracks. Really cool stuff... that has not made it out of the lab as far as I'm aware.
When it has been replicated it's theoretical science. But it's still a variant on the XKCD joke about how everything (including guns) kills cancer in vitro but that doesn't mean you can use it to cure cancer.
Lab-only experiment might clue the next person into a phenomenon that can make it out of the lab. But making it news when it hits the scientific journals has been a sore subject for a lot of people, and seems like it always will be, and that it might even get worse before it gets better. We call a lot of things 'science' that haven't followed the scientific method, and it's exasperating.
This is not the first time materials sciences people at UIUC have looked at self-healing materials. Twenty+ years ago they were looking at lacing concrete to repair small cracks. Really cool stuff... that has not made it out of the lab as far as I'm aware.