Silly Putty

The business of the North American Toy Fair, an annual showcase of the latest in silly putty, monster trucks and board games, is fun.

Because I always think it looks like Silly Putty.

"Is rift formation more like glass breaking or like Silly Putty being pulled apart? That was the question," Olinger said.

Now researchers at Stanford University have shown that another biophysical characteristic known as viscoelasticity -- think of how stretching a ball of Silly Putty or a clump of bread dough is met at first with resistance, and then with release -- is even more tightly correlated with liver cancer than stiffness, particularly in people with Type 2 diabetes.

The strain at times is monstrous, hilariously so, as the actor squeezes her face into a ball of Silly Putty, her nose collapsing into her eyes as they all fall into the maw of her mouth.