Posted on 01/10/2010 3:48:23 PM PST by lowbridge
A novel - and natural - way of creating new bones for humans could be just a few years away.
Scientists in Italy have developed a way of turning rattan wood into bone that is almost identical to the human tissue. At the Istec laboratory of bioceramics in Faenza near Bologna, a herd of sheep have already been implanted with the bones.
The process starts by cutting the long tubular rattan wood up into manageable pieces. It is then snipped into even smaller chunks, ready for the complex chemical process to begin. The pieces are put in a furnace and heated. In simple terms, carbon and calcium are added. The wood is then further heated under intense pressure in another oven-like machine and a phosphate solution is introduced.
'Very promising'
After around 10 days, the rattan wood has been transformed into the bone-like material. The team is lead by Dr Anna Tampieri.
"It's proving very promising" she says. "This new bone material is strong, so it can take heavy loads that bodies will put on it.
"It is also durable, so, unlike existing bone substitutes, it won't need replacing".
Several types of wood were tested before they found rattan works best. That is because of its structure and porous properties, which enable blood, nerves and other compounds to travel through it.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
There’s a joke in there somewhere.
I called work once and told them I wouldn’t be in because I had a bone in my leg.
I question this because plant material has 5 amino acids and we only have 4.
Termites. Be very leery of termites.
Hope they can stop boning sheep long enough to try it on people.
LOL
“Can these bones live?” ping.
By the time they get done with this, there won't be any amino acids. The cellular structure (probably the cellulose and/or lignin backbone) will have been converted to carbon, which they then impregnate with calcium phosphate. Probably no organic matter left at all.
See "coconut charcoal" for another type of plant material converted to carbon (and used on an industrial scale).
This sounds better than the use of coral as a bone replacement.
Thanks for posting. Fascinating article.
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