"Scientists Discover First New Polymers in 20 Years." No, not quite. New polymers are developed by the dozen in materials science nowadays! I think I see wher

"Scientists Discover First New Polymers in 20 Years." No, not quite. New polymers are developed by the dozen in materials science nowadays! I think I see where the author got mixed up though: reversible thermosets would be quite novel in of themselves, and you could argue most breakthrough developments in thermosets/thermoplastics are from decades ago. But this is far from the only polymer family there is. It's a shame. Clearly the author is way out of his depth here (e.g. 'Polymers are essentially macromolecules made up of 10000 or more atoms'; 'the researchers (...) are now submitting their findings to Science'), but that's what science editors are there for. On the other hand, The New York Times has a much better article [1] and reveals another twist: apparently the PI found the reaction by accident. Check it out, and shame on Mashable for spreading bad science. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/science/error-leads-ibm-researchers-to-a-new-family-of-materials.html?hpw&rref=technology&_r=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/science/error-leads-ibm-re...