Innovation Pipeline

When listing nature’s wonders, you’d have to put spiderwebs somewhere near the top. Strands of biomaterial with the tensile strength of steel formed into complex shapes that withstand wind, heat and sunlight. They’re so impressive that scientists still don’t entirely understand them.

But recently researchers at the University of Wyoming have deciphered the glue that cements web ends to surfaces. It ranks as one of the strongest glues made in nature, so strong that adhesives based on the web glue could ultimately replace existing petrochemical adhesives, according to Omer Choresh, molecular biologist at the University of Wyoming.

Past research has revealed that spiders make their web glue from glycoproteins–proteins with bits of sugar attached. Building on of that discovery, scientists analyzing the web glue of the golden orb weaving spider (noted for its especially intricate webs) identified two new glycoproteins in the glue and showed that domains of these proteins were produced from opposite strands of the same DNA. Their findings are reported in the October issue of the American Chemical Society’s Biomacromolecules journal.

At the other end of nature’s invention spectrum are surfaces that resist adhesion, like the lotus leaf. Researchers at Duke University have been examining the lotus plant to find out how it keeps itself so clean and dry. This is the first time researchers have observed water as it condensed on a leaf’s surface and, more important, how and why it vanished from the leaf.

Researchers used an ultra-high-speed camera, a powerful microscope and audio to understand how the lotus plant’s hygiene works. The underlying physics of the lotus’ superhydrophobicity has a broad range of commercial applications. (For example, everything from power plants and electronic devices are cooled by removing heat through water evaporation and condensation.)

How does the lotus pull off its drying feat? Researchers say the solution lies in the plant’s large leaves, which are covered with tiny irregular bumps, which are spiked with even tinier vertical hairs. When a water droplet hits, the drop sticks at the end of the hair, buoyed up by air pockets and repelled off the leaf.

One of the researchers, assistant professor Chuan-Hua Chen, said the findings point to new directions in not only cooling systems but water-repellent materials, nonstick textiles, self-cleaning optics and drag-reducing hulls. By Lee Bruno