Friday, July 06, 2007

What Holds Bone Together?


The illustration gives a hint. Below are some samples of what you find in the latest research, and hopefully we can then extrapolate how all this might affect racing:

"a new instrument to measure bone fracture risk in living patients" (hmmm!)

"molecular origins of fracture resistance in mineralized tissues", "fracture resistance mechanisms" and "we have recently made a great discovery in this area". (the discovery involves the above illustration).

"atomic force microscopy to image nanometric fracture processes"

"bone is a sophisticated material with a hierarchically complex structure that makes it extremely resistant to fracture". (query: anything about the structure permitting us to make it even more resistant?)

"The biomedical bone research field is an enormous endeavor--it produces thousands of scientific papers yearly, and yet...a great deal of work remains to be done to completely understand how bone works to resist fracture."

"it is not known on a molecular level how the energy of an impact is dissipated non-destructively in healthy bone".

The aim is to discover:

"how fracture originates in healthy bone--the study of structures and mechanistic behaviors..."

"how fracture propagates through bone"

"what arrests the development of fracture"

The above shows where all this is going. Let's end this one by noting that a lot is known and has been found. Think I've got enough to show there's quite a difference in fracture resistance depending on the warm up.

Training:
4th straight day of riderless paddock work for Art. This was the first one "structured' since the layoff--about 4f slow gallop at his own pace at a time, 2 miles total, some of it snappy. He's still tender on his hoof. 5 min. walk under tack. Nob said Art seems to understand the tack stuff now. Oldsters preparing for Eureka trip.

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