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Steel has long anchored modern construction, but its environmental toll is staggering: producing a single ton emits nearly two tons of CO2. Steel is also complex to manage in construction processes, which prevents smaller contractors and projects from using it. A material invented at the University of Maryland will soon offer a radical alternative. Called Superwood, it has a 50% greater tensile strength than steel and a strength-to-weight ratio that’s 10 times better. It’s lighter, tougher, and also locks away carbon. After seven years of development, the startup commercializing the technology will begin mass production this summer. Weve spent years perfecting our molecular reconfiguration process to maintain the extraordinary properties demonstrated in the lab, while making the process commercially viable, Alex Laucofounder and executive chairman of InventWoodtells me over email. [Photo: InventWood] The company was founded in 2016 by Dr. Liangbing Hu at the University of Maryland, after he developed the first transparent wood as a better insulating alternative to glass. What began as pioneering academic work evolved through several breakthrough iterations, Lau says. Hu turned his research into Superwood in 2017. The work was documented in a 2018 Nature paper that revealed a method of transforming ordinary wood into a substance rivaling titanium alloys. The discovery held the promise of a sustainable, CO2 negative construction material that was better than steel, but it was far from commercialization. During this time, Dr. Hu focused on further refining the technology and bringing manufacturing costs down. Then, in 2021, Lau recognized that the technology had reached sufficient maturity for full-scale commercialization. At that point, I helped pull together a complete team to kick off the manufacturing process, he says. Since 2021, we’ve been intensely focused on creating a scalable process and ensuring the quality standards necessary to bring SuperWood to market. Magnified images of (left) untreated wood and the same wood treated by a new process (right) invented by UMD engineers that compresses the natural structures of wood into a new material five times thinner. [Images: courtesy University of Maryland] How Superwood is made Making Superwood is a complex process, but it requires two primary steps. First, lignina polymer that stiffens wood and gives it its brown hueis partially dissolved using food-grade chemicals. As Orlando J. Rojas, a professor at Finlands Aalto University, noted back when the discovery came out in 2018, the trick is to remove just enough lignin to maximize hydrogen bonding between cellulose fibers without compromising its structural integrity. Next, the wood is compressed at 150°F, collapsing its cellular structure into a dense matrix. The result is a material five times thinner than the original, but 12 times stronger and 10 times tougher. This molecular reconfiguration eliminates woods inherent weaknesses. Natural wood is porous and prone to rot, but Superwoods tightly packed cellulose fibers create a barrier against moisture, termites, and fungi. Its Class A fire ratingachieved without chemical flame retardantsstems from its density, which starves flames of oxygen. Lab tests proved its ballistic resistance: A projectile pierced untreated wood, but it lodged halfway through a same-thickness Superwood block. Unlike steel or carbon fiber, it requires no energy-intensive smelting or synthetic resins. Initially, it took weeks to make a single plank of Superwood, but Inventwoods team streamlined the process to just a few hours, enabling bulk production of the material. Lau tells me that the companys first facility in Frederick, Maryland, will produce one million square feet of Superwood annually starting this summer, focusing initially on interior finishes for commercial and high-end residential projects. A second phase in fall 2025 will introduce exterior-grade panels for siding and roofing. He envisions structural beams and columns within a few years, pending certification. Their plan is to build a larger facility that will scale to over 30 million square feet, enabling use in infrastructure and large developments, Lau says. If you are wondering about how architects and crews can actually use this to build, you are not alone: If its stronger than steel, does it require special tools? According to Lau, contractors can cut, drill, and fasten Superwood with standard woodworking tools, though its density may demand adjusted techniques. No specialized tools are required, making adoption straightforward, Lau says. The materials stability minimizes warping, and polymer coatings enable outdoor use without sacrificing aesthetics. Its compressed fibers deepen natural grain patterns, yielding finishes akin to tropical hardwoods. [Photo: courtesy University of Maryland] It can change everything Lau didnt disclose information about price, tought he did say Superwoods initial pricing will be premium but competitive with top-notch tropical hardwoods and hybrid woods, which are composite materials that combine wood with other materials like steel or concrete. This means that, pound by pound, it will be much more expensive than steel at this point, more than 10 times in fact: $12.50 to $25 per pound for Superwood as opposed to steels $1 to $2 per pound. But then you need to factor in other factors to understand its true cost. If Superwoods offers 10x superior strength-to-weight ratio, a 10-pound beam could match the load-bearing capacity of a 100-pound steel beam, in theory effectively reducing its effective cost to $1.25 to $2.50 per pound when adjusted for performance. [Photo: InventWood] You also need to factor in its resistance to corrosion and rot, plus the fact that you can make a building entirely out of Superwood and eliminate the need for other structural elements and wall materials. Then theres the economical and environmental cost of fire retardants, since the material naturally retards fire even if its wood. Since wood comes from the most effective living carbon sequestration system on the planettrees!it will actually suck CO2 out of the atmosphere (the material is made from wood from sustainable tree farms). Clearly, Superwoods long-term value proposition narrows the gap with steel in relative and absolute terms. The company expects to achieve better economics as they scale up production too, Lau adds. Superwood, in theory, could extend beyond construction. Early research proposed applications in vehicles, aircraft, and furniture, leveraging its moldability and cost savings over carbon fiber. For now, InventWood is focused on buildings, however, where steel and concrete account for a massive carbon footprint, pollution, and economic bill. We want to get to the bones of the building, Lau says. He believes that Superwood can transform the construction industry. We will see when the first batches roll out this summer and companies start using them.
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E-Commerce
Across the country, nonprofits are confronting a sudden and severe financial shock: federal funding theyve long relied on is being pulled backabruptly, and in some cases, entirely. In recent weeks, the Trump administrations spending cuts have triggered frozen contracts, rescinded grants, and stop-work orders across federal agencies. The moment has highlighted the financial vulnerability of many institutions, and underscored the importance of building more resilient, diversified funding models that arent solely dependent on federal dollars. Organizations that once built multi-year budgets around government commitments are now rewriting financial plans weekly just to keep up. Delays, backlogs, and revenue gaps have become routine. According to the Urban Institute, between 60% and 80% of nonprofits that rely on public funding would face serious financial shortfalls if that support disappeared. Due to resource constraints, many nonprofits have treated financial management as a day-to-day operational function, with less emphasis on its role as a strategic driver of mission impact. But in todays environment, that approach is no longer sustainable. Volatilityfrom elections, markets, and geopoliticshas become a permanent feature of the landscape. Organizations that fail to adapt risk not only missing opportunities but also jeopardizing their ability to weather the next downturn. To meet this challenge, nonprofits must elevate financial strategy to a central pillar of leadership. That starts with three critical shifts: Investment oversight must be proactive, not passive In todays climate, checking in on financial performance once a year just isnt enough. Many nonprofits are now reviewing liquidity monthly or quarterly and running scenario planning exercises to stress-test how unexpected shiftslike a delayed government payment or a rescinded grantwould affect their ability to meet payroll or sustain core programs. Boards can support this work by ensuring theres a clear investment policy aligned with the organizations real-world cash flow needs and risk tolerance, and by revisiting that policy regularly. Investment committees, in turn, can work with advisors to shift more assets into more liquid investments, giving them flexibility when contract payments are late or major gifts dont come through. Donor strategy must become a financial strategy. With once-reliable federal funding no longer a given, nonprofits must actively cultivate alternative revenue streamsand that responsibility shouldn’t fall solely to the development team. Donor engagement must be tightly integrated with financial planning. That includes segmenting and expanding donor bases to identify those with capacity to give more, using predictive analytics to anticipate giving patterns and gaps, and aligning fundraising calendars with financial forecasts. Finance and development teams, or external financial partners, should work together to build models that estimate how different donor strategies impact year-end liquidity and long-term planning. In short: Strengthening donor revenue is not just a development goal, its a financial imperative. Endowments must be treated as mission-sustaining tools. Endowments are more than rainy-day fundstheyre meant to ensure the perpetuity of the organizations. Over the past two decades, nonprofits have taken important steps to diversify their portfolios. In fact, average exposure to public equity and fixed income has dropped from 70% to 39%, while allocations to alternatives such as private equity and hedge funds have more than doubled. That shift can offer stronger returns, but diversification isnt a one-size-fits-all strategy. For organizations that depend heavily on government contracts or grants, an overly rigid or illiquid portfolio can create real vulnerabilities in times of stress. Take, for example, some of the nations most prestigious universities. Even institutions with multi-billion-dollar endowments have recently moved to sell private equity holdings to increase liquidity, citing political and financial uncertainty around federal funding. When organizations of that scale and sophistication reconsider their exposure to illiquid assets under stress, its a clear signal: Alternative investments must be approached strategically, with a careful understanding of both short- and long-term cash needs and risk tolerance. A tiered approach to liquidityreserving some assets for near-term access while investing the rest for long-term growthcan help organizations stay resilient, especially those that rely heavily on government grants or contracts to fund operations. Ultimately, resilient philanthropic missions require resilient financial models. That means seeking expertise not only in investment performance, but in governance, risk management, and long-range planning. Advisors and teams that understand how to connect financial oversight to mission outcomes can help institutions build confidence internally, with donors, and with the communities they serve. The current crisis has made one thing clear: Static portfolios and static strategies are liabilities. Financial oversight must evolve from a compliance checkbox into a dynamic leadership function, one that safeguards todays operations and secures tomorrows mission.
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E-Commerce
Adam Becker is a science journalist and astrophysicist. He has written for The New York Times, BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, Undark, Aeon, and others. He also recorded a video series with the BBC, and has appeared on numerous radio shows and podcasts, including Ologies, The Story Collider, and KQED Forum. Whats the big idea? Tech billionaires like to hype up delusional doomsday fantasies in which they are the saviors and overlords of civilization. Many people may just laugh or disregard these outlandish claims, but a closer look reveals the scary truth of how seriously, specifically, and consequentially these thought leaders are committed to their ridiculous visions for the future. They abstain from making meaningful choices to improve the here and now because of their faith in unreasonable techno-solutions. It is important that society stays aware that their nightmares and promised utopias are founded in fiction. Below, Becker shares five key insights from his new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valleys Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Listen to the audio versionread by Becker himselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Tech billionaires have ludicrously implausible power fantasies about the future. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other tech billionaires have made surprisingly outlandish claims about what a good future for humanity should look like. Elon Musk has spoken repeatedly about the need to set up a colony on Mars. He has said that hes going to put a million people on Mars by 2050 by sending one rocket launch a day for years, and that the colony needs to be self-sufficient, surviving even if the supply rockets from Earth stop coming. Musk contends that this is vital for the future of humanity, claiming that our species will go extinct if it doesnt happen soon. He claims Mars is our lifeboat for civilization. This is all pure fantasy: Mars is too inhospitable to allow a million people to live there anytime remotely soon, if ever. The gravity is too low, the radiation is too high, theres no air, and the Martian dirt is filled with poison. Theres no plausible way around these problems, and thats not even all of them. Nor does the idea of Mars as a lifeboat for humanity make sense: Even after an extinction event like an asteroid strike, Earth would still be more habitable than Mars. Mammals survived the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs, but no mammals could survive unprotected on Mars today. Putting all of that aside, if Musk somehow did put a colony on Mars, it would be wholly dependent on his company, SpaceX, for supplies. Thats one feature that tech oligarchs fantasies have in common: they all involve billionaires holding total control over the rest of us. 2. AI isnt going to be as good (or bad!) as the tech industry claims. Silicon Valley billionaires and thought leaders have been making wild promises about AI. They claim that AI will soon become superintelligent, far outstripping human intellect, and this will lead to a total revolution in human civilizationif these godlike AIs dont destroy humanity first. Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, says that superintelligent AI is coming within the next four years. He also claims that once we have it, every product and service will halve in price every two years as AI takes over the economy. Bill Gates has made similar claims, suggesting that AI will free us for a life of leisure as it caters to our every need. Other industry leaders claim AI will revolutionize science, ushering in an unprecedented era of discovery and near-magical technology. Theres virtually no evidence for any of this: it is specious reasoning amplified by tech industry money and hype. These are narratives based on science fiction. They fundamentally misunderstand both the nature of intelligence and how current AI systems operate. Even calling something like ChatGPT AI is misleading; its a marketing term thats gotten way out of hand. 3. Were not colonizing space. Tech billionaires like Musk and Bezos have dreamed of colonizing space for decades. Despite their promises, its not happening. Musks dreams of Mars are modest compared to some of the other specious fantasies spun by tech billionaires and the think tanks they fund. Bezos doesnt want to put a million people in spacehe wants a trillion people living in a fleet of giant cylindrical space stations with interior areas bigger than Manhattan. He claims this is the best way to ensure future generations thrive. Otherwise, he warns, our species will stagnate on Earth. Yet such space stations would be staggeringly difficult and phenomenally dangerous to build. And Bezoss concerns about stagnation are based on a mix of faulty reasoning and an attachment to long-discredited ideas about sociology and history. Others in the tech industry (or funded by tech billionaires) have advocated for a future beyond our solar system, pushing humanity to take over the galaxy or the entire universe. This is even more unlikely to work: the distances between stars are too great, and theres little reason to leave the solar system. The impossible promise of an interstellar empire is held out as a shiny fantasy to justify the actions of tech billionaires. Musk has used the supposed need to colonize Mars as an excuse to ignore details like worker safety at SpaceX. Bezos has said that the pursuit of such a future is the most important thing he could be doing with his fortune, more important than addressing Earthbound problems here and now. 4. How Big Tech gets science wrong and distracts from present threats. Tech industry leaders often present themselves as scientific experts on everything from human biology to astrophysics to nuclear fusion. The truth is that they are business leaders, not scientists, and frequently get in far over their heads when discussing scientific concepts. They believe that their wealth makes them general experts on everything. Musk has repeatedly gotten facts about Mars wrong, even when hes been publicly corrected. He has repeatedly claimed that Mars can be terraformed (made into a more Earth-like planet) by using nuclear weapons to melt the Martian ice caps. Musk contends this would beef up the Martian atmosphere enough to allow humans to live there, but this isnt true: There arent nearly enough frozen gases in those ice caps to get the job done. When scientists pointed this out to him, he doubled down. Hes not alone in this. Altman has never given good justification for his claims about AI. Bezoss ideas about space come from old plans from the 1970s that were later shown to be unworkable. These arent just careless mistakes about unimportant details. Getting these scientific facts wrong allows these tech billionaires to maintain faith in their power fantasies and gives them an excuse to ignore todays problems. Altmn has said that the AI systems he believes are coming soon will be able to solve global warming quickly and easily, and therefore, hes not concerned about new AI data centers requiring huge amounts of power. Pushing humanity toward the impossible goals of tech oligarchs will lead to destructive consequences for everyone. 5. The racist origins of the tech industrys core ideology. Underneath the bizarre proclamations of tech billionaires, there is an ideology that technology can solve every problem, even fundamentally social and political problems like strife in the Middle East or political polarization in the United States. This ideology of technological salvation stems from a toxic mix of misunderstood science fiction, fringe religious movements, and racist pseudoscience. The same online subcultures that spawned the ideas about AI that Altman, Musk, and the rest have swallowed also have connections with the American far-right and a troubling history of promoting scientifically discredited claims about fundamental differences in innate intelligence between different races. This goes hand in hand with their obsession with AI: They believe that AI can become godlike because they believe that intelligence is a single measurable trait corresponding to IQ, and that a sufficiently powerful AI would be able to simply dial up its IQ to an arbitrarily high number. But IQ has always been used for eugenics and institutional racism, and theres little evidence that it measures anything real about people. Its mostly just been used to say that some groups of people are inherently better than others. Its no surprise that such stories are attractive to billionaires who want to justify their desire to remain in power over the rest of us forever. Recognizing the hollowness of these ideas is the first step to taking back our power. They want to set the terms on which we imagine the future, but the future isnt theirs for the taking. The future is something we all build together. They want us to believe that their promised utopias and nightmares are our only option. But in reality, the future is open. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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E-Commerce
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