On With Bones II

Onward and yet closer to the crux. Take a bone collagen fibril by the tail, sling it x number of times at y amount of force. Vary this. What happens and when?

Whether anything happens at all we solve by slinging into perpetuity and presuming at some point there will be an effect. Each micro-point along the way we increase force from zero to infinity and measure both the effect and at what specific point the effect begins. We are materials scientists, and so we take out our calipers and scopes to obtain data which we then put into our calculations to make sense of a large and confusing number of possibilities.

From the information we extract the common sense and obvious assumptions which apply to our horses, as follows.

This all begins, of course, with a version of primordial soup that make up bone tissues. These are being acted on by slow moving physical and chemical processes until that moment that we take up and start to sling the fibril. We may suppose that our slinging either accelerates or damages processes that migh have taken place in any event, or possibly create new processes.

First we recognize what forces are applied to the fibril by our slinging. In addition to physical force there is heat build up as is normal with application of pressure and movement upon any chemical material. Electrons speed up, temperature rises, pressure increases, etc.

May we suppose the interior of the fibril--the white in the image, which is water/organics/cell components-nucleus, mitochondria, etc. might experience the effect we get churning a glass of heated water. The semi-liquids rearrange, materials such as calcium salt ions disperse accelerating to equilibrium etc. Might the (blue) HA mineral platelets push against each other and move as a group toward the opposite end from our grip?

What, in practical terms, might be the effect of all this? I am thinking

1. Available materials such as calcium are more evenly dispersed hence more available to mineral platelet growth.

2. Might vascular circulation increase causing a materials/calcium dump into the cell interior leaving material behind for construction/reconstruction?

2. More space is created, temporarily, in the cell interior permitting possibly additional newborn platelets to occur that might previously have been crowed out. According to Planck, mineralization is good (for strength).

Consider also what might be happening to those mineral platelets coating the outside skin of the fibril. (These fail to show in the image probably because the Hansma lab stripped them to isolate the single fibril.) I'm supposing constant slinging at sufficient force will also move those coating blobs closer together creating more room for additional blobs, but perhaps more importantly "rearrange" the mineral lattice of each blob "ad hoc" to force being applied--i.e. instead of random organization of calcium lattice, might we eventually get very pointed and organized calcium within each blob, and also blobs organized in specific patterns???!!!

Continue next post.

Training

Tues 4/6 Off, rain.

Wed 4/7 Off, rain. probably 1.5 inches total.

Thurs. 4/8 pastures too wet for anything productive. Riderless play in muddy paddock for 10 min. spurting where we could. Horse into it in nippy temps. Where is "lazy" Rod these days?