Whether it’s ultralight trekking poles, a reusable water bottle or a sun hoodie with thumb holes, the gear is part of the fun of hiking.

I wish I’d had this ultralight set instead.

CBA researchers were developing ultralight cellular structures for the aerospace industry, while Sea Grant researchers were assessing the performance of blowout preventers in offshore oil structures -- cylindrical valves that are used to seal off oil and gas wells and prevent them from leaking.

Those include “fuzzy” or “warm” dark matter, composed of hypothetical, ultralight particles called axions, and even a whole “dark sector” of invisible particles and forces that would create galaxies with a different footprint.

"The troubleshooting process has given us many new insights and has sharply focused us on the connection between our modular structure and the diagonal booms. We have developed new ways to counter the effects of self-weight in ultralight deployable structures."