About the Authors

Emiliano Lepore

Affiliation Laboratory of Bio-inspired Nanomechanics “Giuseppe Maria Pugno”, Department of Structural Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

Andrea Marchioro

Affiliation Laboratory of Bio-inspired Nanomechanics “Giuseppe Maria Pugno”, Department of Structural Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

Marco Isaia

Affiliation Laboratory of Ecology and Terrestrial Ecosystems, Department of Human and Animal Biology, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

Markus J. Buehler

Affiliation Laboratory for Atomistic and Molecular Mechanics, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Center for Materials Science and Engineering, and Center for Computational Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America

Nicola M. Pugno

nicola.pugno@polito.it

Affiliations Laboratory of Bio-inspired Nanomechanics “Giuseppe Maria Pugno”, Department of Structural Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy, National Institute of Nuclear Physics, National Laboratories of Frascati, Frascati, Italy, National Institute of Metrological Research, Torino, Italy

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: NMP. Performed the experiments: EL AM MI. Analyzed the data: NMP EL MJB. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: EL AM MI. Wrote the paper: NMP EL AM MI MJB.