First American Scientific Corp. (fka FASC)

[Jagman]

Think of the stems as a hanging rope. It breaks, say, at 5 pounds of weight on the end, that is tensile stength. When the stems are "dried" from 2 hours to 386 hours, they will break at 10 pounds of weight (two-fold, 2 X 5 pounds). The stems are "stronger" when dried.
Shear stress is like cutting the stem with a dull sissors, onefifth or 5 pounds divided by 5 = 1 pound of force required to cut it. After 386 hours, it still took only 1 pound of force to cut it.