As all Society for Creative Anachronist members know, rattan is a wonderful substance

able to, when wrapped with duct tape, mimic a sword in terms of heft but without the sharp edge, doing only bashing damage in the parlance of role-playing games. Turns out there is a far more useful purpose for rattan than fake swords and porch furniture. It can be used to mimic bone.

Turning wood into bones

It works through heating the cut up bits of rattan, causing calcium and carbon to be added, then heating again in a furnace whilst adding a phosphate solution.

The team is lead by Dr Anna Tampieri.

"It's proving very promising" she says. "This new bone material is strong, so it can take heavy loads that bodies will put on it.

"It is also durable, so, unlike existing bone substitutes, it won't need replacing".

Several types of wood were tested before they found rattan works best.

That is because of its structure and porous properties, which enable blood, nerves and other compounds to travel through it.

Dr Tampieri says it is the closest scientists have ever come to replicating the human bone because, she says: "It eventually fuses with real bone, so in time, you don't even see the join".

The team has already implanted the bone substitute in sheep which do not seem to be rejecting it, and the process is promising. Here's hoping it works out and it can be used in humans within a few years.

Rattan is a somewhat vine-like plant in the palm family and grows in the tropics, primarily in Indonesia. It uses trees as supports but is easier to harvest and grows more quickly, providing an alternative to slower-growing tropical woods, making it a renewable resource that could have greater potential if deemed medically important, which in return would help improve the oeconomies of places like Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Phillipines, and Sri Lanka.