Speed Work And Nano Structures

Caracortado wins Saturday's Robert B. Lewis and more fodder for our amusement, considering that the sire Cat Dreams stands for $1500 in Brookville, Indiana, wherever that is (congrats to those folks!), and more importantly to this blog Caracortado strode 40 times 3/16th pole to wire thus his lead front cannon striking the ground surface roughly 26 times/furlong which is about 213 hits/mile. Consider!

Indulge me for a moment and visualize seizing with your hand our old friend the Type I Bone Collagen fibril, above right, by its tail on its left and slinging this cell against a solid surface 213 times. What might we expect in terms of the internal structures?

Review collagen cell content. The blue structures in the image above are intra-cellular mineral hydroxyapetite crystals referred to as HA platelets. These little near solid calcified bodies shape themselves into 6 sided hexagonal patterns. The white color in the image consists primarily water, but somewhere in there is the rest of the cell apparatus, nucleus, mitochondria, DNA, etc. These are mature, as opposed to newborn, fibrils since they are already mostly mineralized.

We sling this cell against a wall, the bottom one, perhaps, noting that our cell is braced against numerous brethren (and sisters) which dissipate the force of the hit. Nevertheless may we think, after 213 strikes against the wall that there would be some fairly dramatic effect in the interior of this cell. I am thinking that HA Platelets might be pushed in the opposite end from our force, and that they might be pushed closer together. I am further thinking that this process would leave behind additional water spacing for more HA platelets to grow post race.

In this "slinging a fibril against the wall" experiment, we need consider some other characteristics. Our horse is dealing with multiple fibril arrays or patterns. In addition to single fibrils bearing force with each strike these arrays do also. Below an image of multiple fibrils arrayed in a pattern.
Notice above the spacing between the fibrils. How might such space be affected by the hits?

Below are images from the Planck piece showing mineral growth outside the fibrils. The black are HA platelets, the white is the skin of the fibril. How might these patterns be affected by the hits?
And, we notice below (again, from Planck) that fibril arrays may align themselves in certain patterns. Planck stands for the proposition that the arrangement of these arrays matters in terms of strength and fracture resistance. May we consider that after multiple strikes the fibril arrays in our horse cannons might begin to assume the "ad hoc" position instead of prior randomness? Significance, next post.

Training:
Sun 2/14: Off day scheduled for Valentine's Day 2009, A cold bad weather day in KC.