{"id":2322,"date":"2014-07-12T17:44:45","date_gmt":"2014-07-12T22:44:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=2322"},"modified":"2014-07-14T10:23:03","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T15:23:03","slug":"unlocking-the-secrets-of-ambers-toughness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/unlocking-the-secrets-of-ambers-toughness\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlocking the secrets of amber\u2019s toughness<img src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/canada_flag_icon_small.gif\">"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_2311\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ambercropHR2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2311\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2311\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ambercropHR2-300x287.jpg\" alt=\"Amber is extremely durable, more so than many human-made polymers. Scientists have used a new slow-burning technique to unlock the chemical structure that underlies amber\u2019s toughness. (Photo credit:  Government of Canada, Canadian Conservation Institute, CCI 123773-0025)\" width=\"300\" height=\"287\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ambercropHR2-300x287.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ambercropHR2.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2311\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amber is extremely durable, more so than many human-made polymers. Scientists have used a new slow-burning technique to unlock the chemical structure that underlies amber\u2019s toughness. (Photo credit: Government of Canada, Canadian Conservation Institute, CCI 123773-0025)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">A new analysis technique helps explain how amber achieves its strength and durability, and could help humans mimic it in their own materials.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">Scientists have been able to isolate the building blocks &#8211; including communol, ozol and succinic acid &#8211; but exactly how they fit together has been a mystery.\u00a0Made from fossilized tree sap, amber is a natural polymer (a long-chain molecule made up of smaller building blocks) and can last millions of years, far longer than many human-made polymers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">Now, scientists have developed a new analysis technique that is able to release larger chunks of the matrix, e.g., groups of three or four building blocks stuck together, revealing how the building blocks are arranged in the polymer. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #222222;\">Besides revealing the secret of its toughness, the analysis could help identify amber from different sources in ancient artifacts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/abs\/10.1021\/ac501073k\" target=\"_blank\">Original research paper<\/a><\/span>\u00a0published in the journal\u00a0<em>Analytical Chemistry<span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/em>on\u00a0<strong>June 19, 2014<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0authors<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #222222;\">Jennifer Poulin, Canadian Conservation Institute<\/span><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new analysis technique helps explain how amber achieves its strength and durability, and could help humans mimic it in their own materials.\u00a0 Scientists have been able to isolate the building blocks &#8211; including communol, ozol and succinic acid &#8211; but exactly how they fit together has been a mystery.\u00a0Made from fossilized tree sap, amber [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1913,869,32,1911,1912],"class_list":["post-2322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-archeology","tag-canada-en","tag-chemistry","tag-construction","tag-polymers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/ambercropHR2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-Bs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2322"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2337,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2322\/revisions\/2337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}