NEW YORK - AUGUST 27: Shear Genius Season 2 mentor and celebrity hairstylist Rene Fris attends the Shear Genius Season 2 finale
Date: 27/08/2008
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IBM and ETH Scientists Advance Supercomputing Simulations to Improve Diagnosis of Osteoporosis
Researchers of ETH Zurich and the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory have demonstrated the most extensive simulations of a real human bone structure ever achieved. In order to analyze bone strength, the researchers used massively parallel simulations to obtain a “heat map” of strain, which changes with the load applied to the bone. The image shows the effective strain on a 5 by 5 by 5 mm human vertebra specimen under a load corresponding to the person's weight when standing. The areas in blue support a higher strain whereas weaker parts are shown in red. The simulations are based on a high-resolution scan (6 microns) using peripheral quantitative computer tomography (pQCT). The researchers created a very detailed mathematical model that required more that 400 million elements—so called "voxels"—in order to capture faithfully the intricate bone microstructure. In the next step, researchers computed the strain on the bone by applying different loads that simulate real-life conditions. The specimen in this image shows a healthy human bone.
