Science news in pictures Limpet teeth are the strongest biological material known to man

Forget spiders' webs; the teeth of tiny limpets are the strongest biological material yet discovered, and could be used to build the cars, boats and planes of the future. And their sheer strength could see them become the basis for a new generation of virtually unbreakable false teeth, according to researchers from the University of Portsmouth. Details of a series of experiments, published in the Royal Society journal Interface today, reveal how the strength of limpet teeth is the highest ever recorded for a biological material, superseding that of spider silk, and comparable to the strongest man-made fibres such as carbon. The teeth of the common limpet, found in seas surrounding Britain and across western Europe, “need to be mechanically robust and avoid catastrophic failure when rasping over rock surfaces during feeding,” researchers note in the study, which also involved experts from Queen Mary University London, and the University of Trento, Italy. The teeth were so hard that a diamond saw had to be used to slice them into tiny pieces which were then reduced further in size by being bombarded with atoms from an ion beam. The widths of the resulting samples were 100 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair

Fotosearch