Can man-made ivory save the elephants?

Professor Jochen Mannhart is a physicist whose scientific work could prove to be a conservation game changer. Every year tens of thousands of African elephants continue to be hunted down and killed by poachers for their ivory tusks. Working to find ivory alternatives, Professor Mannhart and his team at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Germany have reproduced the chemistry of a real ivory tusk, opening a potential new market in synthetic ivory and help save an endangered species ... or at least that was the hope.