In a paper appearing in Nature Physics, the researchers show that when a tissue is pressed or squeezed, it is more compliant and relaxes more quickly when the fluid between its cells flows easily.

Water makes up around 60% of the human body. More than half of this water is inside the cells that make up organs and tissues, and much of the remaining water flows in the spaces between cells. MIT ...

These images use color markers—blue for nuclei, red for cell membranes, and green for fluid—to show that spaces between cells shrink as fluid moves out during tissue compression, from left to right ...

Muscle matrix: This image, made using confocal microscopy, shows multiple thin layers of an elastic polymer (purple) and interwoven muscle tissue (green) formed from neonatal rat heart cells. Tissue ...