Brittle in Biological News

Slicing solar power costs

... lower the cost of such cells by reducing the waste and breakage of the brittle semiconductor. The expensive solar cells now are used mainly on ... round wafers of germanium from cylindrical single-crystal ingots. But the brittle chemical element cracks easily, requiring broken pieces to be recycled, ...

UAB study reveals bone coupling factor key to skeletal health

... failed to explain the coupling role of TGF beta-1 in skeletal health. Bone remodeling occurs through resorption, the body's way of removing old and brittle bone to avoid breaks and skeletal disorders. Bone formation happens as skeletons grow and as the body works to counter bone resorption by laying down ...

Salt block unexpectedly stretches in Sandia experiments

... discovery came about as researchers were examining the mechanical properties of salt in the absence of water. They found unexpectedly that the brittle substance appeared malleable enough to distort over surprisingly long distances by clinging to a special microscope's nanometer-sized tip as it left ...

One sponge-like material, three different applications

... A new sponge-like material that is black, brittle and freeze-dried (just like the ice cream astronauts eat) can pull off some pretty impressive feats. Designed by Northwestern University chemists, it ...

Scientists create tough ceramic that mimics mother of pearl

... mussels and certain other mollusks, is renowned for both its iridescent beauty and its amazing toughness. Nacre is 95-percent aragonite, a hard but brittle calcium carbonate mineral, with the rest of it made up of soft organic molecules. Yet nacre can be 3,000 times (in energy terms) more resistant to ...

Research pushes back history of crop development 10,000 years

... scar on the chaff of the plant noting an abscission (shedding of a body part) as opposed to the smooth abscission scar associated with the wild type brittle rachis. Simply counting the proportion of chaff types in a sample gives a direct measure of frequency of the two different gene types in this ...

Prevent a bone break, drink milk to boost calcium

... physical capacity to exercise and stay healthy. These adult bone fractures may also be an early sign of risk for osteoporosis a serious condition of brittle bones afflicting more than 10 million Americans. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend three servings of fat-free or lowfat milk each ...

New fish has a face even Dale Chihuly could love

... folds of skin that obscure its fins, making it look like a glass sculpture that Dale Chihuly might have dreamed up. But far from being hard and brittle like glass, the bodies of these fist-sized fish are soft and pliable enough to slip and slide into narrow crevices of coral reefs. Its probably part ...

RNA interference therapy heals growth deficiency disorder in a live animal

... keeps the cows from eating, says Phillips. Some other common dominant negative diseases include forms of colon cancer, deafness, muscular dystrophy, brittle bone disease, kidney disease and retinitis pigmentosa. The blueprint for a protein like growth hormone is genetically encoded in a series of special ...

Sea cucumbers fast track organ regrowth by healing their wounds

... fix ourselves," commented Professor Garcia-Arraras. "Many people, including scientists, regard sea cucumbers and other echinoderms like star fish and brittle stars as bizarre, exceptional outcasts because of their regenerative abilities. But we've shown that they use the same 'ordinary' mechanisms and ...

New research on structure of bones raises questions for treatment of osteoporosis

... with minerals such as calcium phosphate. Osteoporosis is a chronic and widespread disease in which mineral formation is disturbed, leading to brittle bones, pain, and increased fractures. Osteoarthritis, a hallmark of which is joint cartilage and GAG depletion, is also accompanied by abnormal bone ...

Layered approach may yield stronger, more successful bone implants

... CPCs make it easier for new bone cells to infuse and, eventually, solidify the implant. Until this happens, however, the macropores leave the implant brittle and susceptible to failure. In the September 2007 issue of Biomaterials,* Hockin Xu and colleagues describe a unique approach for providing ...

Bones at the nanoscale

... it is a stretchable fibrous protein called collagen and the other half a brittle mineral phase called apatite. These com-ponents make this biomineralized ... and so on, enabling the tissue to sustain large strains. This is why the brittle apatite remains shielded from excessive loads and does not break. The ...

Now, self-healing materials can mimic human skin, healing again and again

... liquefies – is extracted, leaving behind a substrate with a network of interlocking microchannels. In the final steps, the researchers deposit a brittle epoxy coating on top of the substrate, and fill the network with a liquid healing agent. In the researchers’ tests, the coating and substrate are ...

Researchers discover new gene responsible for brittle bone disease

... new tests to identify affected children and provide them with added medical support," Boyce said. "There may be up to 15 percent of children with brittle Bone Disease who have mutations related to the new gene. Although the number of affected children is small, the demonstration that they have an ...

What animals can tell us about hemorrhage, organ transplants and aging

... it that: Hibernating squirrels can lose up to 60% of their blood volume and survive at least 10 hours? Brine shrimp can lie on the shore like brittle skeletons, but snap back to life when placed in water? Naked mole rats can live for 28 years but their mice cousins live only three? Birds live ...

Polymers show promise for lab-on-a-chip technology

... past, most microscale research and development funds have targeted silicon, the fundamental material in the semiconductor industry. But LCPs are less brittle and more pliable than silicon, Elias said, adding that LCP devices could be tailored to respond to specific external stimuli, such as temperature ...

Carnegie Mellon researchers discover new cell properties

... isn't necessarily better. The stiffer lamina did protect the HGPS nucleus from some forces, but under excessive force the HGPS lamina was more brittle and eventually fractured. "The mutant HGPS lamina is like an egg shell that cracks when excessive pressure or force is exerted against it," Dahl ...

Brittle prions are more infectious

... proteins called prions, brittleness makes for a tougher, more menacing pathogen. Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher have discovered that brittle prion particles break more readily into new "seeds," which spread infection much more quickly. The discovery boosts basic understanding of prion ...

New technology shows our ancestors ate…everything!

... robustus, the researchers confirm previous evidence that A. africanus ate more tough foods, such as leaves, and P. robustus ate more hard, brittle foods. But they also revealed wear patterns suggesting that both species had variable diets. "This new information implies that early humans evolved ...

New Scripps Oceanography project to study sediments and ecosystem restoration in Venice lagoon

... indicators to test for toxins and pollutants in San Diego Bay. As in San Diego's waters, when studying Venice's lagoon Deheyn will use luminous brittle stars, a cousin species of starfish, to determine whether contaminants in the Venice Lagoon are bioavailable (the amount of contaminants locally ...