Obsidian – a type of volcanic glass – can produce cutting edges many times finer than even the best steel scalpels. At 30 angstroms – a unit of measurement equal to one hundred millionth of ...

Sharpness, though, is the main draw. “If you look at a surgical scalpel and a fresh obsidian flake under a microscope, the obsidian edge makes the surgical scalpel look like a dull ax,” Dr ...

Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, is smooth, hard, and far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making it a highly desirable raw material for crafting stone tools for almost ...

Önder Bilgi talks about his discovery of a razor-sharp 4000-year-old scalpel and what it was originally used for At an early Bronze Age settlement called Ikiztepe, in the Black Sea province of ...

Jamie Hale/The Oregonian Obsidian is a dark, natural glass, formed when lava cools without crystallizing. Humans have used it for pottery, arrowheads and even surgical scalpels. It's not exactly ...

A greenish obsidian blade, believed to have been found on the Texas Panhandle, may be from the 16th-century expedition led by the Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, a new study suggests.

Obsidian—a glasslike ... Even in modern times it has been used experimentally to manufacture surgical scalpels. But it is rarely found in Europe and Western Asia, with the notable exception ...