Cracking the Story of Fracture

A crack slicing through a brittle material may be a more complicated process than researchers previously thought. A team reporting in the 29 January Physical Review Letters wedged apart a piece of Plexiglas and saw three different fracture processes, depending on the speed of the moving crack. Their results help to further the basic physical understanding of material fracture and, ultimately, material failure.

Update: How could I have missed that the story was written by sciencegeekgirl?