A research group led by the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has deciphered the process of formation of hard and durable skeletons in the bodies of marine organisms.
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The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focused on the involvement of magnesium-containing calcite in the aforementioned processes. Magnesium is a strong and light metallic element that plays many roles in the animal world, including in the human body.
In the current study, the researchers focused on nine different organisms belonging to different kingdoms and phyla including brittle stars, red algae, starfish, coral, and sea urchins. The two main players in the process are, as mentioned, magnesium and calcite. The researchers found that the sedimentation of the calcite particles in the magnesium-poor substance creates compression efforts in the skeletons that increase their rigidity – without the need for mechanical compression used in the production of similar materials in classical engineering processes.
The researchers found that this crystallization process improves both the hardness of the material and the resistance to fractures. Moreover, they show in the study that even a slight reduction of the magnesium content in the substance doubles the hardness of the material by some 100%.
The study was supported by an EU grant from the ERC and was conducted in collaboration with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France and the Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, USA.
