Turning wood into honeycombs: Wood is an attractive material for structural applications, but it usually works best as boards or sheets. Xiao et al . have developed a process for engineering hardwood that allows these sheets to be manipulated into complex structures (see the Perspective by Tajvidi and Gardner). The key is to manipulate the cell wall structure by shrinking and blasting open the fibers and vessels by drying and “water-shocking” them. This process creates a window wherein the wood can be manipulated without ripping or tearing. Honeycomb, corrugated, or other complex structures are locked in once the wood dries. —BG

Inspired by natural matrix-mediated biomineralisation, we present an artificial calcification approach for wood, which predominately targets the hardly accessible nanoporous cell wall structure rather than the micron-sized void system of the cell lumina. CaCO₃ can be deposited with this method deep inside the wood structure. Mineralisation of the wood cell wall architecture with CaCO₃ offers a green alternative to conventional fire-retardant systems.