Your bones are savvy. They are light yet strong and they repair themselves when they break. What’s more—although you can’t tell—your bones continually renew themselves, replacing old bone for new.
This isn’t unique. Other tissues and cells (most noticeably skin) replace themselves. But bones do it with adaptation, adjusting to meet the body’s mechanical and physiological needs.
How does the skeleton achieve something so remarkable? New imaging technology is revealing a previously underappreciated dimension of bones: the living cellular network built deep inside them. This living network is composed of the most abundant cell in bone: the amazing osteocyte.
