Researchers in New Mexico are reporting the surprise discovery that common table salt — so brittle that it crushes easily between a thumb and forefinger — becomes a super plastic in the weird environs of the nanoworld. The super-elastic salt can stretch like taffy to twice its original length without breaking. The discovery could lead to new insights into the role of salt in a wide variety of situations ranging from helping clouds to form to triggering asthmatic attacks in people, they say.

Credit : Moore et al., Nano Letters 2009, 9 (6)