Scientists finally unravel the mysteries of barnacle glue
Posted by freedomforall 9 years, 9 months ago to Science
Scientists have been trying to figure out how barnacles are able to stick to so many things so securely, and an international team led by researchers from Newcastle University in the UK has finally cracked it.
To surfaces for which covalent bonds cannot easily be formed, and often as a precursor to such covalent bonding, barnacles use van der Waals interactions to form relatively weak "bonds" with surfaces in a way similar to geckos and frogs. Some mollusks also employ polymer-polymer entanglement. To visualize this, think of the difficulty of disentangling cooked spaghetti.
I have learned a lot on this subject sitting on thesis and dissertation committees of students from Geoff Swain's group. Geoff is the co-editor of Biofouling. Not only is biofouling critical to the shipping industry, it is also vital to the biomedical implant industry.