{"id":174504,"date":"2026-05-13T09:47:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T13:47:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=174504"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:50:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:50:43","slug":"look-out-below","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2026\/05\/13\/look-out-below\/","title":{"rendered":"Look Out Below!&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>By tossing a pomelo off a roof, researchers demonstrate the fruit&#8217;s remarkable shock absorbency<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2026\/could-king-size-citrus-fruit-inspire-better-phone-case\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Patrick L. Kennedy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the world\u2019s biggest citrus fruit, native to Southeast Asia. The grapefruit-like pomelo, officially <em>Citrus maxima<\/em>, is a popular festival food with a mild, slightly sweet taste. It also has a hefty peel that protects the delicate flesh inside\u2014and that could help inspire more shock absorbent cell phone cases, packaging, and even naval ships.<\/p>\n<p>At Boston University College of Engineering, researchers are studying the pomelo\u2019s remarkable ability to fall from great heights\u2014pomelo trees can grow up to 50 feet\u2014without smashing into pieces. With a US Navy grant, they\u2019re combining biology, materials science, and computational mechanics to engineer novel, lightweight materials that replicate this unique fruit\u2019s energy absorption mechanisms, on a larger scale.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve always been intrigued by bioinspired engineering,\u201d says project lead <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/profile\/j-gregory-mcdaniel-ph-d\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">J. Gregory McDaniel<\/a>, an ENG associate professor of mechanical engineering and of materials science and engineering. \u201cNature keeps building things and testing them all the time, right in front of our eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Learn more, and watch the roof drop, at BU&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/articles\/2026\/could-king-size-citrus-fruit-inspire-better-phone-case\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Brink<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers demonstrated the remarkable shock absorbency of the pomelo fruit, by dropping it from a BU rooftop. What they learn might lead to better protective coverings for ship&#8217;s hulls, sensitive equipment packaging, and even your cell phone case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2662,"featured_media":174505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,257,1278,909,908],"tags":[1362],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174508,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174504\/revisions\/174508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}