From cartilage to fruit-fly wings, physicist studies 'squishiness' in everyday things

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Assistant professor of physics Itai Cohen right and physics graduate student Mark Buckley examine their tissue deformation device which simulates stress and strain on samples of tissue such as cartilage or sclera. Credit: Lindsay FranceUniversity Pho ...
Assistant professor of physics Itai Cohen, right, and physics graduate student Mark Buckley examine their tissue deformation device, which simulates stress and strain on samples of tissue, such as cartilage or sclera. Credit: Lindsay France/University Photography

Cartilage is essential to movement in the human body, cushioning bones and joints, while retaining its shape despite a lot of pressure, poking and prodding. Unfortunately, it also often starts breaking down after 60 or so years, leading to such conditions as osteoarthritis and painful inflammations.


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The Lightness of Electrons in a Twisting Metal Crystal

Jul 25, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of researchers at Princeton University's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center has observed electrons moving through a crystal of bismuth metal behaving like light.

Proposed Particle Help Explains Odd Galactic Photons

Jul 25, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
In 2002, a satellite called INTEGRAL was launched by the European Space Agency with an instrument on board to detect and measure gamma rays from space. Four years later, it yielded some intriguing data: An unusually high ...

Electron microscopy enters the picometer scale

Jul 24, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
Jülich scientists have succeeded in precisely measuring atomic spacings down to a few picometres using new methods in ultrahigh-resolution electron microscopy. This makes it possible to find out decisive parameters ...

Revolutionary materials reflect ancient forms

Jul 24, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(PhysOrg.com) -- Although order is pleasing to the eye, it can quickly become boring. In Islamic architecture therefore, decoration often follows a strict yet aperiodic pattern. Similar structures also form ...

Shielding for ambitious neutron experiment

Jul 24, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
In science fiction stories it is either the inexhaustible energy source of the future or a superweapon of galactic magnitude: antimaterial. In fact, antimaterial can neither be found on Earth nor in space, is extremely complex ...
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