You are made of polymers and so are trees and telephones and toys. A polymer is a long chain of identical molecules (or monomers) with a range of useful properties like toughness or stretchiness -- and it turns out we just can't live without them. Polymers occur both naturally -- our DNA is a polymer -- and synthetically like plastic Silly Putty and styrofoam. Jan Mattingly explains how polymers have changed our world.
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