The Sweet Tooth of SCIENCE!
Cotton Candy has delighted carnival-goers and scientists for years and while the Fair Stompers have been able to combine their two loves for generations, Scientists unfortunately, have not. That is, until now... Scientists in New York have presented their preliminary work concerning cotton candy and tissue development in the online magazine Soft Matter* . The process would work is like this: "F irst , you pour a thick liquid chemical over a wad of cotton candy. Let the liquid solidify into a chunk, and put that in warm water to dissolve the candy. That leaves tiny channels where the strands of candy used to be. So you have a chunk of material with a network of fine channels within. Next, line these channels with cells to create artificial blood vessels. And seed the solid chunk with immature cells of whatever tissue you're trying to make. The block is biodegradable, and as it disappears, it will gradually be replaced by growing tissue. In the end, you get a piece of tissue pe...