Snail slime inspires new super-strong reversible glue

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/18/snail-slime-inspires-new-super.html

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Snail slime – called an epiphragm

Wow, never knew that.

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5

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Is this the same stuff that allows slugs to slide along the edge of a razor blade?

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:astonished:

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“Please, my rabbit, she’s very sick”

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What in the seven hells is that?

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Would you believe- prior art exists:

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African Giant Snail

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I am trying to imagine someone being held up by a simple postage stamp sized area of anything other than a bolt into a ceiling.

Even a bolt into a ceiling would rip out under my weight if it was just drywall. This is actually pretty damn impressive.

What would be really life-changing is if somebody would create something like this for medical use because I still can’t, after three showers, get the tape residue from the ER IV tape off of my arm :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

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And really, this research should have been done at UC- Santa Cruz:

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Use orange oil

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I will give that a try but I don’t have any around

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Dad worked as an electrician 35 years. We always have a pump bottle of Orange Goop under the sink.

Does a great job of dissolving blackened grease and filth off your hands before washing them in the sink. Will get off pretty much anything.

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Forgot I have a bottle of Gojo, which I keep for same purposes…

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Works similarly well, but I’m sure is less bio-friendly: WD40.

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[Off Topic] I once heard a snail eating.

I was having a backyard ciggy on a dead calm night in Western Australia. I heard the faintest rhythmic crunch and eventually tracked it down to a snail on a dry leaf.

To this day I don’t know what’s going on in a snail’s mouth but I’m a sound engineer and that rhythmic crunching was definitely coming from that snail on that leaf!

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