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Some scientists have said that alloy development is a mature field with little room for improvement. This week, however, researchers report a new method for making titanium-based alloys with many qualities far superior to those in any alloy previously known. The team originally intended to develop materials for automobile parts, says Takashi Saito of Toyota Central Research and Development Laboratories in Nagakute, Japan. Instead, he and his coworkers wound up with materials that Saito says are too expensive for mass production in automobiles but have unusual properties suitable for a new generation of precision screws, eyeglass frames, medical devices, sporting goods, and spacecraft parts. Engineers can also readily mold or bend the materials at room temperature into various shapes, a property called superplasticity.