Narwhals in Northwest Greenland. (Carsten Egevang / Greenland Institute of Natural Resources via SWNS)
Hidden secrets of the narwhal's twisted tusk have been revealed using the latest X-ray technology.
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The narwhal’s tusk is the left canine tooth, which grows through the jaw and lip and can reach more than two meters in length. (Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources via SWNS)
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This 3D image shows how the mineralized collagen fibrils the microscopic building blocks that give the tooth its strength are arranged. It reveals their direction and how strongly they are aligned. The measurements were made using an advanced X-ray method, SAXS tensor tomography, which can map the internal organisation of the tusk in three dimensions. (Adrian Rodriguez Palomo / Nature Communications via SWNS)
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Narwhals off the ice sheet of Greenland. (Mads Peter Heide-Jørgensen, Greenland Institute of Natural Resources via SWNS)
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Adrian Rodriguez-Palomo, the study's lead author, at the ID13 beamline at ESRF. (Marianne Liebi via SWNS)
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