Look, up in the sky (on that building), it's superwood!

 

I think this is a pretty important article about a potentially important product, if a) they can speed up the process to make enough of it, and b) they can make it with a feedstock that doesn't cause environmental damage.

Also, the technology was developed in Maryland and it's manufactured in Frederick, so it's a "home state" product.

Scientists create ‘Superwood’ that’s stronger than steel

"The breakthrough came in 2017, when [Liangbing] Hu first strengthened regular wood by chemically treating it to enhance its natural cellulose, making it a better construction material.

The wood was first boiled in a bath of water and selected chemicals, then hot-pressed to collapse it at the cellular level, making it significantly denser. At the end of the weeklong process, the resulting wood had a strength-to-weight ratio “higher than that of most structural metals and alloys,” according to the study published in the journal Nature.

Now, after years of Hu perfecting the process and filing over 140 patents, Superwood has launched commercially".

The actual study (Hu listed himself as the final author, not the first author):

Song, J., Chen, C., Zhu, S. et al. Processing bulk natural wood into a high-performance structural material. Nature 554, 224–228 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25476

OK, now let's agree not to make any jokes about this.