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The World's Strongest Glue
missing_myself writes "Yahoo news reports the world's strongest glue is made by bacteria. "The adhesive can withstand an enormous amount of stress, equal to the force felt by a quarter with more than three cars piled on top of it." Time to get rid of the duct tape? "
Blasphemy!
Or something close... it was alive and sticky, that's for sure.
If it's that sticky, how do we ever get it out of the bottle?
On another note, this stuff would would really make the old glue-friend's-hand-to-forehead-or-other-body-part prank very painful...
How much do you want to bet that the glue only lives up to these claims on one substance in the entire universe ... dry human skin (i.e. fingers)?
Horses everywhere rejoice.
This will mark the end of grandmas loosing their dentures while skydiving.
I'd never heard of this new "cars/quarter" unit (invented by the same guy who gave us the LoC unit, presumably), so I had to look it up to see that this glue can hold around 10,000 psi (70,000 kPa).
Ewige Blumenkraft.
"There are obvious applications since this adhesive works on wet surfaces,"
"We tried washing the glue off," Brun said. "It didn't work."
Rod Taylor
Apparently something similar happened with Teflon too. The engineers at Dupont spent a very long time trying to get it to adhere to various surfaces. Teflon is so non-sticky that it took them years to get it to stick to metal pots and pans. Finally they came up with techniques of multiple layering and various methods to bake it on. More at http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_173.html
B: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?
P: Uh... I think so Brain, but where will we find that much caulobacter crescentus, three cars, and a quarter at this time of night?
Three cars per quarter? I don't get it. How much is that in Eiffel Towers per square millicubit?
"Time to get rid of the duct tape?"
Get rid of it?! No way! I say improve it. Imagine duct tape combined with this supersuperglue. My God, it'd be like Astroboy and Atlas working together to defeat a common foe!
Or something.
Would the force change if 3 cars were piled onto a surface that was 1 square meter - no....
Well, if there's more surface area, then there's a wider distribution of weight and the pressure per square inch would diminish.
How strong is this glue under tension and shear?
I have an invisible glue here that can withstand an infinite amount of force under compression, and it is massless. Tension is a while 'nother matter.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
"But how does it *taste*?"
This glue tastes like... burning.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
"The single-celled bacterium uses sugar molecules to stay put in rivers, streams, and water pipes, a new study found."
Now... if I feed it something (like, I guess sugar), would it grow though? Imagine the instructions: "mix with sugar 4:1"...
And further, if I use it to glue a broken sugar bowl, should I expect a self-replicating glue disaster?
"It's not clear how the glue actually works, however, but researchers presume some special proteins must be attached to the sugars."
Well that sounds ensuring, right guys. Reminds me of that movie, The Stuff (1985).
A bunch of scientists like our folks here, discover weird white substance on one of the Earth Poles (please save me the jokes on what you think it was). So naturally, what you think he does? He tastes it, and it's good.
So they just come with the tankers and start pumping it out and selling it as food. Turns out it eats you from the inside and turns you into a zombie.
By the way, has anyone tried to eat that glue and see what it tastes like?
Something to keep the chairs planted firmly on the floor at Micorsoft!
Try gaffer tape some time.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Bacteria are known to mutate, right?
Some mutations spread uncontrollably, known fact.
Sugar is one of more common substances in the world.
Imagine the world where stepping on the grass means they have to amputate your legs to free you. And the glue infection spreading, things getting gradually more sticky everywhere. Up to the point when everyone is glued to the ground, and everything that moves, stops. Entropic death, no more movement.
I for one welcome our sticky bacterial overlords.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
It can keep my wife's mouth shut for even just an hour....