Stronger than plastic and tougher than glass, the resin-filled material is being exploited for smartphone screens, insulated windows, and more. CREDIT: WILEY‐VCH VERLAG GMBH & CO. KGAA, WEINHEIM / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Thirty years ago, a botanist in Germany had a simple wish: to see the inner workings of woody plants without dissecting them. By bleaching away the pigments in plant cells, Siegfried Fink managed to create transparent wood, and he published his technique in a niche wood technology journal. The 1992 paper remained the last word on see-through wood for more than a decade, until a researcher named Lars...