Transparent wood is being used for smartphone screens, insulating windows, and more. The material is made up of countless small vertical channels, like a bundle of straws held together with glue.

Transparent wood could soon be used in super-durable phone screens, soft-light lamps, and even structural elements such as color-changing windows. In tests that measure how easily materials fracture or break under pressure, clear wood was found to be about three times stronger than clear plastics like glass.