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"Call it superhero plastic. Researchers at the 243rd National Meeting &amp; Exposition of the American Chemical Society introduced plastic that can repair itself when temperatures change or if it's exposed to light. The substance could potentially have numerous valuable purposes, one of those being it could signal the end of dinged plastic on cellphones. \nProfessor Marek W. Urban, Ph.D. presented the research that showed the plastic will change color when damaged. When exposed to light or temperature changes, the plastic will fill-in created gaps itself. Some have compared this filling-in to \"bleeding\" and healing of human skin, because the plastic turns red when damaged. The plastic material has \"molecular bridges\" that connect the plastic and make its self-healing possible.  \nThe research team is focusing on how plastic might regenerate itself in extremely hot temperatures. Automaker Nissan created a self-repairing iPhone case earlier this year. And another team of researchers was recently working on a self-healing plastic that repairs itself using \"ordinary light.\"\nThis doesn't help iPhone owners, whose phones are mostly glass, but many cellphone makers have at least one plastic model. \nWhat else could this plastic be used for? Tell us in the comments. \nPhoto courtesy of iStockphoto, TommL\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/03/27/this-plastic-can-repair-itself-using-light-and-temperature-video/>