article_snippet.sent: Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory discovered that the curly fibers of collagen that make up dermis of the skin straighten and stretch in response to a tear to share the load and prevent further damage.
article_snippet.sent: Collagen fibrils and fibers rotate, straighten, stretch and slide to carry load and reduce the stresses at the tip of any tear in the skin. '
article_snippet.sent: The movement of Collagen acts to effectively diminish stress concentrations associated with any hole, notch or tear.'
article_snippet.sent: The researchers, whose work is published in the journal Nature Communications, then found the collagen in the dermis, the thickest of the three main layers that make up skin, changed the collagen in the dermis, the thickest of the three main layers that make up skin alignment at the edge of the tear.
article_snippet.sent: The collagen, which is normally in a disordered tangle, straightened and began to slide against each other to absorb the stress and provide extra strength.
article_snippet.sent: The researchers, whose work is published in the journal Nature Communications, then found the collagen in the skin dermis changes from being a disordered tangle (shown left) to line up in straight parallel rows (shown right) when skin is damaged to provide strength and tear resistance .
article_snippet.sent: This reorganization of the fibrils is responsible for blunting the stress at the tips of tears and notches.'
article_snippet.sent: Unlike bone and teeth, which are also made of collagen fibres but tear and crack when under stress, the collagen in the skin appears to change the collagen in the skin structure when placed under stress.
highlights_snippet.sent: Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found collagen fibres in dermis change structure when under strain .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: collagen fibres in dermis change structure go from being a disorganised tangle to straighten and stretch .
  