Bone is built of two basic components: flexible fibers of collagen and brittle chains of the calcium-rich mineral hydroxyapatite. But those relatively simple ingredients, the springy and the salty, are woven together into such a complex cat’s cradle of interdigitating layers that the result is an engineering masterpiece of tensile, compressive and elastic strength...
Bone also has a crack repair team, in every sense of the word: osteoclast cells that dig around the cracks, using acids to wipe away the old matrix, and osteoblast cells that migrate in and secrete fresh spacklings of bone.
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In the lab, self-healed specimens recovered most if not all of their original strength after researchers subjected them to a 3 percent strain—enough to severely deform metal or catastrophically fracture traditional concrete. Traditional concrete fractures and can’t carry a load at .01 percent strain.
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