Packing Disks in a New Way

F rom liquid crystals to bags of coins and bottles of pills, how disk-shaped objects pack together is a question with wide relevance in science and technology. In experiments on coin-sized plastic disks, researchers have found a new type of packing behavior in which the disks form short stacks that jam up against one another, preventing long-range alignment [1]. The researchers predict that structures like these might be formed in molecular andmesoscale materials such as liquid crystals and clays, where they could influence the mechanical, flow, and optical properties.