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Chemists Crack Secrets of Mussels' Super Glue
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from Purdue University working under an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) have discovered that common blue mussels are using iron found in seawater to create their own super glue. "In addition to using the knowledge to develop safer alternatives for surgical and household glues, the researchers are looking at how to combat the glue to prevent damage to shipping vessels and the accidental transport of invasive species, such as the zebra mussel that has ravaged the midwestern United States." This overview contains more details and references about this discovery. You'll also find an image of mussel glue at a magnification of 25,000X and one of a mussel adhering to a sheet of Teflon."
What sticks to Teflon?
Mussels!
Bah, there was a punchline in there somewhere, but I think I missed it.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
So, the next time a lamp breaks or something, I'll just go fetch a mussel and fix it with that. Cheap and easy! Just don't tell PETA.
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That's my dinner!
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
"Stick to your ribs" suddenly has a whole new meaning...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
This area of research is similar to what I did as a chemistry post graduate.
h tm
s ives.htm
After a bit of googling, I found the researcher's home page:
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/Faculty/wilker.
I also found the page for his research group. Linked from it, was a more detailed description of the chemistry involved:
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/wilker/adhe
Unfortunately, while I could find a number of links to actual publications in peer-reviewed chemistry journals, all where subscription sites.
When you say "super glue", most people here think of Superglue(tm), which is cyanoacrylate adhesive, not mollusk snot. Couldn't a different phrasing have been used?
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
You know, with this development, and all the recent talk about gecko super-tape being developed... it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. We're developing products that make structures, installations etc. more and more permanent.
We all talk about expanding recycling programs, and cutting down on fossil fuels, but then build structures that have such highly developed components, they can never be re-used or perhaps even dismantled (without disintegration, probably releasing even more agents into the biosphere).
Now don't get me wrong, with the right regulation and foresight, these kind of developments can be true breakthroughs. But forging ahead without considering whether an invention can be dismantled or reduced to its original components is not good engineering these days.
But hell, my field is ancient history, what do I know...
This was discovered by Sander Haemes 3 years ago.
actually, research has been conducted on mussels like these for at least the past 15 years. scientists were having horrible trouble producing this adhesive on their own, and could only get something remotely close by crushing thousands of mussels and extracting the adhesive from them, and still the glue would wear off sooner than expected.
the discovery that iron contributes to the chemical structure will perhaps expedite the process of simulation and production, but there's still a long way to go. as technologically advanced as we are, we know hardly anything about how to build things on a molecular level, and even if we finally observe the chemical makeup of this glue, i believe production technology will be holding back synthesis.
The topic says:
"In addition to using the knowledge to develop safer alternatives for surgical and household glues, the researchers are looking at how to combat the glue to prevent damage to shipping vessels and the accidental transport of invasive species, such as the zebra mussel that has ravaged the midwestern United States."
You didn't even have to RTFA!
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
More information about the zebra mussel can be found here:
The Zebra Mussel Page
The slide show link is informative. To quote: "Zebra mussels are a pest organism because they not only attach to one another, but also to man-made objects, including water intakes and other plumbing of water, power, and other companies that use fresh water. [snip] Zebra mussels also attach to other organisms, such as these native (North American) mussels from Lake Erie. Heavy loads of zebra mussels have killed essentially all native Unionid mussels in western Lake Erie, an early site of the zebra mussel invasion. Zebra mussels first appeared in Lake St. Clair (yellow star, north of Lake Erie), possibly from ship's ballast water from the Black Sea region. They rapidly spread downstream with the current, and upstream and to other watersheds on boats, with bait, and by other man-mediated mechanisms."
The National Atlas website has a nice Shockwave animation illustrating the invasion between 1988 and 1999:
Animated Map Showing Zebra Mussel Distribution
... is someone to produce a super-mussel in its own shimmering vat, just pumping the stuff out for us to make our own spacecraft hulls with.
Should be easy.
What would be interesting is a genetically mutated mussel for ships which a) roams around sealing cracks, and b) kills all other non super-mussel mussels from the hull.
Maybe a super ship fixing mussel with frickin' lazers on its valves? That'd rock.
But anyway, I'm serious about the shipfixing idea. Why can't we work -with- nature instead of against it all the time, why oh why?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
On the oxidation state of the iron molecules. The glue dissolver might have to reduce the iron in order to break the bond. Iron is commonly found in the Fe2+ and Fe3+ oxidation states. If the iron molecules are in the Fe2+ state, then you would be correct.
There's a couple of easy mnemonics to remember the general RedOx rules:
OLEGON (Oxidation is Loss of Electrons and Gain in Oxidation Number)
or
LEO says GER (Loss of Electrons is Oxidation, Gain of Electrons is Reduction).
There's probably others, but basic chemistry was a looong time ago for me...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Combine some mussel superglue with some bioluminescent squid (ogg file) and you've got yourself a mean underwater flashlight, though.
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Lessee, handsome young professor, with EIGHT grad students. All coincidentally female and good looking. What are the odds of THAT? Spend a lot of time in the lab, do ya, Doc?
m .j pg
http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/04/images/thetea
I'm going to let everyone ELSE make the jokes, thanks.
-Styopa
Whoopdedoo. When they get a guy to stick a mussel on his hat and use it to hang from a steel girder high over the city, then I'll be impressed.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Hamster
If I understand correctly, the ultimate goal of these studies is materials capable of "transient permanence". We could have a glue that would hold indefinitely, but releases its grip when you add a particular molecule that unties the connections. Or gecko tape that sticks with amazing tenacity, until an electric field is applied to the tape, causing the microscopic gripping "feet" to release. Or even plastics that don't exude organic volatiles, that are sturdy but can be converted to a recastable form upon command.
Industry has already made superstable substances (like dioxins or CFCs), but by looking to biology for inspiration, we may be able to make substances whose long-term stability will reduce waste, while allowing a graceful dismantling when their usefulness has been outlived.
...at an ASC conference a year or so ago. Very well put-together presentation - I didn't read the article (yay typical /. behavior), so I'm going by my memory of the talk and slides
As I recall, the fella from Purdue had mentioned that the primary interest they were pursuing was to try and exploit the technology for a medical/surgical adhesive, but that a firm understanding of the chemical mechanism could be worth quite a bit to the US Navy, since estimates put fuel waste and inefficiency (due to increased drag on ships because of the molluscs attached to the hull) runs into the billions...
(As a funny aside, this guy was probably the only talk at the conference that really got people interested. There's only so much excitement to be had in glue. :P )
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