Osteoporosis sufferers and victims of broken bones may have the tiniest of friends in carbon nanotubes, according to researchers at the University of California, Riverside.
The strength, flexibility and light weight of carbon nanotubes – structures 100,000 smaller than a human hair – allow them to act as scaffolds to hold up regenerating bone, according to Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Robert C. Haddon, the director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering at UC Riverside.