Climate Central: A roomful of materials scientists, gathered at UCLA for a recent conference on "grand challenges in construction materials,' slowly passed a brick-size white block around the room. They held in their hands, briefly, part of the solution to one of those grand challenges. The white block, rock solid and surprisingly lightweight, was a new alternative to cement, the glue that holds together aggregate, or crushed rock, to make the world's most ubiquitous building material: concrete.
Production of...