We are moving beyond static objects to a world of living materials that heal, think, and reshape our reality.
— Jim Carroll
The opportunity
Enable greater design freedom, facilitate the use of sustainable and innovative building materials, reduce material waste, and potentially lower construction costs for complex structures.
From “Megatrends One Year Later – #16: Material Science Breakthroughs – What I Predicted, and What’s Actually Happening” (August 2026)
One year ago, in July 2025, I published Megatrend #16: Material Science Breakthroughs as part of my 30 Megatrends series. Time to grade myself.
Virtually every single industry, new product discovery, and invention is the result of materials science. No doubt, material science is a megatrend!
Where are the self-healing materials a year later? Construction moved fastest. Bacterial “bio-concrete” — organisms like Bacillus subtilis and Sporosarcina Pasteurii secreting calcium carbonate into cracks — is now called 2026’s leading construction material trend, sealing micro-cracks in as little as 21 days and pitched specifically to cut the Middle East’s infrastructure repair bill. Induction-healed asphalt, with steel fiber woven into the mix and reopened by a mobile heating pass, now adds 5-15 years of pavement life and cuts maintenance spend up to 50%.
From “Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #16 Material Science Breakthroughs: “We are moving beyond static objects to a world of living materials that heal, think, and reshape our reality.”” (July 2025)
To get a sense of this megatrend, read what I wrote back then: We all use materials. We never really think about it too much, though: the science behind their discovery, the acceleration of that science, and what it leads to in terms of new opportunities. That’s what this post is about – and it’s part of my BIG Future series.
The list goes on. Essentially, this aspect of science affects virtually every industry – power and telecommunications, aerospace, construction, biomedical, energy, healthcare, automotive, and sustainable development. Even the acceleration of brain science, in that new materials might help lower the risk of infection for new probes that might be used in brain surgery, and the acceleration of computer-to-brain technology
Those are the aspects of material science that are already here and evolving quickly.
From “The BIG Future: New Materials Science” (February 2023)
The list goes on. Essentially, this aspect of science affects virtually every industry - power and telecommunications, aerospace, construction, biomedical, energy, healthcare, automotive, and sustainable development. Even the acceleration of brain science - in that new materials might help lower the risk of infection for new probes that might be used in brain surgery and the acceleration of computer-to-brain technology (discussed in one of my other BIG Future trends - The Acceleration of Brain Science .) “These bioactive polymer- based electrodes can enable the conformal contact with irregular tissue and result in low inflammation when compared to conventional rigid inorganic electrodes. In this review, we focus on the use of silk fibroin and cellulose biopolymers as well as certain synthetic polymers to offer the desired flexibility for constructing electrode substrates for a conformal neural interface.
Bottom line - materials science matters. And if it is moving faster, the stuff we use in our daily lives will happen faster; new products will be discovered faster; and potential big challenges will be solved faster. What’s critical to understand is that we are now moving into a new era accelerated by the acceleration of science. Everything we use is made of a material. The paper (or screen) on which you are reading this article, your clothes, and electrical devices, the building you are in, and even you, are made from different types of materials. We live in a ‘material world’.
One of the most fascinating, long-standing but fast-evolving aspects of material science has to do with the idea of ‘living materials.’ For a long time, scientists have adopted the idea that the discovery of many new materials can come from studying nature itself, and adopting what is seen there as opportunities for innovation with new materials. From pangolin scales that can stand up to hard hits to colorful but sturdy peacock feathers, nature can do a lot with a few simple molecules.
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Megatrends One Year Later – #16: Material Science Breakthroughs – What I Predicted, and What’s Actually Happening
Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #16 Material Science Breakthroughs: “We are moving beyond static objects to a world of living materials that heal, think, and reshape our reality.”
The BIG Future: New Materials Science