Titanium Foam Builds Wolverine Bones
Eat your heart out, Wolverine. The X-Men superhero won’t be the only one with metal fused into his skeleton if a new titanium foam proves suitable for replacing and strengthening damaged bones. Bone implants are typically made of solid metal — usually titanium. Though well tolerated by the body, such implants are significantly stiffer than bone. This means that an implant may end up carrying a far higher load than the bone it is placed next to, according to Peter Quadbeck of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials Research in Dresden, Germany. In a worst-case scenario, the decrease in stress placed on the bone means it will deteriorate, while the implant loosens and needs to be replaced. [NewScientist.com, 23 Sep 2010]