US Scientists have discovered a new shape called scutoid.
Javier Buceta, a lead author of the study said, ‘The shape was found while studying nature’s way of moulding tissue to form the skin, cavity linings and the building blocks of organs. The shape has five sides on one end and six on the other and a triangular surface on one of its longer edges. Scientists have referred to it as a twisted prism kind of shape that allows the tissue to mould around organs. Our model predicted that as the curvature of the tissue increases, columns and bottle-shapes were not the only shapes that cells may develop. To our surprise, the additional shape didn’t even have a name in math! One does not normally have the opportunity to name a new shape.”
Epithelial tissue, one of the four kinds of tissue that forms the human body, is composed of epithelial cells packed together in a particular formation that has been given a nifty name: scutoid.
The paper titled ‘Scutoids are a geometrical solution to the three-dimensional packing of epithelia’, was published in Nature Communications.
