Thu Tong

A team from Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has been examining the structure of deer antlers, hoping their toughness can inspire a range of biomaterials that can be 3D printed.

Unlike horns, antlers are true bone and are composed primarily of calcium and phosphorus. Using state-of-the-art computer modelling and x-ray techniques, the scientists examined antlers at a nanoscale level, searching for the structures that allow the appendages to take such abuse when male deer clash.

“The fibrils that make up the antler are staggered rather than in line with each other,” said study  first author Paolino De Falco from QMUL’s School of Engineering and Materials Science.

“This allows them to absorb the energy from the impact of a clash during a fight.”

The research, published in the journal ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering, found that the antlers’ strength came from the axially staggered arrangement of stiff mineralized collagen fibrils, coupled with weak, damageable interfibrillar interfaces. This newly discovered structure can hopefully be replicated to create a new range of materials that are resistant to damage, and which could even be 3D printed.

“Our next step is to create a 3D printed model with fibres arranged in staggered configuration and linked by an elastic interface,” said study co-author Dr Ettore Barbieri, also from QMUL’s School of Engineering and Materials Science.

“The aim is to prove that additive manufacturing – where a prototype can be created a layer at a time – can be used to create damage-resistant composite material.”

We talk to Stuart Firestein, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University, about his latest book Failure: Why Science Is So Successful.

With parched white pieces of found sea coral, artist Gregory Halili has been creating skeletal parts of the human anatomy from hands and arms all the way up to a lifesize recreation of a human skeleton suspended atop a giant piece of driftwood. The irregular coral segments are uncanny stand-ins for human bones, and it’s no surprise the artist is able to identify anatomical details within sea life due to his previous work with skulls carved from mother of pearl. Halili was born in the Philippines in 1975 and spent his childhood surrounded by tropical wildlife and abundant regional flora and fauna that would go on to influence his artistic career in New Jersey. You can see more of his recent work on Artsy and at Nancy Hoffman Gallery.

Jess Riva Cooper (previously) produces smooth ceramic busts, the mouths agape rather than closed in smile or silent contemplation. Tangled vines and rosebuds sprout from their mouths, and in some cases leaves from plants pop from the busts’ noses, engulfing the faces in their entirety. In each bust the plants are used as both ornamentation and methods of destruction, forming crowns on the subjects’ heads as they wrap themselves around the neck in a threatening gesture.

These classic sculptures with a vegetative twist were inspired by deteriorating economic and environmental climates in places such as Detroit, Michigan where homes have been swallowed by the plants around them, their locations reclaimed by nature. It is this thin line between life and death that Cooper imbues into her human forms, nature springing and wrapping around her white figures.

The Toronto-based artist and educator received her MFA in ceramics from the Rhode Island School of Design and currently teaches at Sheridan College in the craft and design program. (via Hi Fructose)

Australian born and now London based artist Nick Sheehy illustrates awesome quirky, street art inspired scenes of fantastical hybrid characters. His work marries ideas from both aspects of low and high brow art; the playfulness and sort of dark humor moments of skeletons and overwhelming string that is reminiscent of veins (or, perhaps they are veins that are reminiscent of string?) winks to the aesthetic from both graffiti and comic book culture. Yet, there is a true classic beauty within each drawing, highlighting Sheehy’s talent and admiration for traditionalist draftsmanship. It is clear from his work that his attention to detail and disciplined drawing style has been developed from an intense labour of love, employing master technique and classic methods. Sheehy originally studied bronze sculpture “in the wilds of Tasmania,” (perhaps giving him the inspiration for such inventive animal-creature centered work!). He then “gave up on art only to re-discover his love for drawing whilst living in London.” Each of his pieces is unique to his practice and full of imagination, cleverness, and sophistication. Sheehy‘s work, he notes, “explores the dreamlike, sometimes semi-autobiographical scenes and oddball characters that echo from his childhood imagination.”

 

 

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You might not know this: Many of the medicines we take -- common drugs like Ambien and everyday aspirin -- were only ever tested on men. And the unknown side effects for women can be dangerous, even deadly. Alyson McGregor studies the differences between male and female patients; in this fascinating talk she explains how the male model became our framework for medical research ... and what women and men need to ask their doctors to get the right care for their bodies.