Nicholas Boynton demonstrates how the new pluripotent plastic can take on different characteristics (Credit: pme.uchicago.edu/ John Zich/ CC-BY-SA-2.0)

What if you could transform the plastic spoon you used at lunch into a cup for your water and then change it back to a spoon? That is precisely what researchers at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering had in mind when they created "pluripotent plastic."