Unlocking the secrets of creeping concrete

College students have used it to make cheap furniture, China has had shortages of it, and main character Michael Scott of "The Office" once famously buried his face in it. Concrete is everywhere -- a ubiquity owed to its strength as a building material. Despite its strength, however, it has a pernicious but inescapable tendency to "creep," or deform progressively under mechanical stress, which leads to crumbling bridges and cracked roads.