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Scientists Create Artificial Bones From Wood
steve_thatguy writes "According to Discovery News, Italian scientists have made artificial bone from wood. Created by blasting wood blocks with heat until they are nearly pure carbon then coating them with calcium, the scientists say the material allows bones to heal faster and more securely. Unlike titanium, the wood-based artificial bones flex slightly much like real bone, and the porous nature of the wood allows for better bio-activity with surrounding tissue. Though human testing is still likely years away, the material is currently being used successfully in sheep and may have other industrial applications."
Well that's not good. Now if they bleed they're going to attract ants.
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So... if they're giving sheep wooden legs... does that mean they're creating pirate sheep? Are they also giving them eye patches and pet parrots?
let washington's dentist be chastised no more!
she was the daughter of a wealthy florentine pogen read em and weep was her adjustable slogan
I'll be claiming me mateys...arr!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
... to invent something that turns orthopedic surgeons into woody boners.
(Yes. I went there.)
I can see the fnords!
That's what I call some baaaahhhd medicine.
Now the goverment is going to create the worst mutant ever: Weapon W.
I've been making bones from wood since puberty, these scientists obviously never took health class in middle school.
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...the material is currently being used successfully in sheep and may have other industrial applications/b>
Mutant zombie sheep used as forced labor in factories?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We can make him stronger... faster... using the latest in prefabrication materials from Home Depot. He is... the Sixty-Five Dollar Man.
"I saw a man with a wooden leg, and a real foot." -- Steven Wright
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Pirates have been replacing damaged or missing limbs with replacements made of wood for years!
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Nearly pure carbon and calcium are probably not something that your immune system worries about. Since neither are really bio-active. There is a game in which units of wood can be traded for units of sheep. This leads to the cry during the trading part of the game "Wood for Sheep!" This gives that a whole new meaning and one we can't snicker at any more.
Why bother
"Paradoxically, metal or ceramic implants meant to prevent bone breaks can sometimes cause them. Current implants are significantly harder than the bone that surrounds them. Natural bone can flex slightly. In fact, stress helps build stronger bones. However, the harder implants can apply so much stress to a particular area that the bone snaps. Softer wooden implants might cause fewer bone breaks."
Hm, this is like what I learned in Structures: or Why Things Don't Fall Down.
The author noted that insurance companies, finding a weak wall, would often over-retrofit it. Then the building collapses, becase the weight that would have been born by the wall is displaced onto the other walls.
He also wrote about the cult of metal. The only reason engines are made of metal, he explained, is because they have to contain very high temperatures. If it were not for that, they could be made far more efficiently with hoses and bladders. He challenged the readers to come up with ways to make things that are presently made out of metal out of other materials -- such as wood and bird feathers.
Sheep die at the slightest insult to their systems. A runny nose is a death sentence. I find it unbelievable that sheep are recuperating on their own with the assistance of some charcoal and calcium
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...until your first termite infestation :(
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
When you take wood and heat it in such a way that almost only pure carbon is left, it's called charcoal. I bet they avoided that little term because it doesn't sound nearly as cool (or strong) as wood.
I piss off bigots.
Ah, the sheep, a stellar piece of industrial machinery.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Just to play devils advocate, there was a situation only a few years ago where a hip manufacturer failed to re-validate its manufacturing process after an equipment change. They ended up shipping contaminated hips (thin veneer of lubricant from the machine), an entire batch of which all failed catastrophically.
I'm a fan of tort reform too, and I agree that (many but not all) of these prices are somewhat artificially inflated, but all of that exhaustive testing needs to happen. Unfortunately, in our system, the medical companies also play the Fight Club Insurance Adjuster game, instead of "doing the right thing" the first time, and a crippling lawsuit is just about the only thing on the other side of the scales.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Yarrrr... me peg leg'll be worth a few bottles o rum afterall!