Of bio-hairpins and polymer-spaghetti

When a basically sturdy material becomes soft and spongy, one usually suspects that it has been damaged in some way. But this is not always the case, especially when it comes to complex fluids and biological cells. By looking at the microscopic building blocks -- known as "filaments" -- of biopolymer networks, researchers from Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany and the FOM Institute AMOLF in the Netherlands, revealed that such materials soften by undergoing a transition from an entangled spaghet...