Sorting out the Science of Stickiness

For many animals, to stick is to survive. Nature's varied adhesive structures and substances enable animals to stick to inert substrates, to each other, and even to parts of themselves. An octopus uses its suckers to grab food, a gecko coordinates its highly specialized feet to ascend a wall, and a mussel emits strings of proteinaceous goo to hold fast to a rock in times of turbulence. Insects coordinate their jumping motions by choreographing contact of leg parts. Some species can even multitas

Written byRicki Lewis

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A symposium at the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology's annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., Jan. 2-6, celebrated the natural engineering wonders of adhesion. Explained Ciprien Gay, a polymer scientist at the National Center for Scientific Research in Bordeaux, France, "Adhesion is what happens at the interfaces between solids." His talk was called, simply, "stickiness." Other talks delved into the specifics of organisms' strategies for attachment.

Adhesion biology is eclectic yet integrated, attracting chemists, physicists, engineers, and materials scientists, cell and molecular biologists, as well as those interested in ecology, ethology, or evolution. Reflecting this variety is the funding—support comes from the Office of Naval Research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the US Department of Agriculture, and private industry. Applications range from building a better bandage to cleaning ship hulls of crusty, clingy life.

Experimental tools reflect the creativity of the field. To scrutinize stickiness, researchers dislodge ants ...

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