PULLMAN, Wash. – A couple months before you were born, your skeleton was soft and bendy. It was made out of cartilage, the same material that’s in your nose and ears now. But when certain cells in your body called osteoblasts and osteoclasts began to work together, new bone started to form.
In fact, you were born with about 300 tiny bones in your body. As you began to grow, some of the bones fused together and became single bones. Now, you carry around a skeleton of 206 bones.
Those bones are pretty strong, too. They are mostly made up of the same minerals that keep your teeth strong and a tiger’s claw sharp: calcium phosphate. They also contain some proteins, vitamins, water and other elements.
That’s what I found out from my friend Susmita Bose. She’s a materials engineer at Washington State University and knows a lot about the science of our bones.
Read all of this answer from Dr. Universe at https://askdruniverse.wsu.edu/2016/02/15/bones/.
A service of Washington State University, Ask Dr. Universe answers some of the most interesting, tough and smart questions from curious kids all around the world.
