Femur fracture at high speed

Did you know that it takes less than 1/100th of a second for a crack to nucleate and propagate through bone when it is impacted?  In collaboration with Dr. Nima Rahbar and his lab, we recently collected high-speed video of a femur as it fractured.  We will use the data we collect to predict where and how bone cracks.  Eventually, this information will help the scientific community develop more effective treatments for osteoporosis.  The video below shows our final “dry run” using sawbones, before we started to break  donated cadaveric specimens.  Thank you to Merck for funding this project.