Loading dynamic pages based on URL

Articles for an online magazine will use one template and load content dynamically from a MySQL database. Assets and images for each article will be stored in their own folder: e.g., www.mysite.com/topic/article Even though a physical HTML page will not exist at www.mysite.com/topic/article, is there a way to load the appropriate articles in the template without actually specifying a physical page name if soemone types that URL into their browser? I'd prefer to send people to www.mysite.com/topic/article instead of www.mysite.com/topic/article/template.php?id=39403848 I realize this may be more of an Apache issue than PHP, but, thought I'd see if anyone here has dealt with something similar. Thanks! Monty