You've probably heard of barnacles but if you live in the middle of a large land mass like I do, you probably haven't thought much about them. They are small shelled creatures that stick themselves onto boats, rocks, and whales. They feed by sticking out filamentous "fingers" and filtering stuff from seawater.
A couple of scientists were wondering how barnacles glue can possible work underwater. You know, regular glue would not work because it wouldn't be able to set up. So they asked themselves what kind of stuff is already well understood to set up like that under water. The answer turns out to be blood and as it turns out, barnacles use a chemical process very similar to blood clotting in order to get their glue to work under water.
Blood clots when the platelets are changed chemically by specific proteins in the blood that are activated when you cut yourself. The scientists found these same kinds of proteins in the barnacle glue and when they added a chemical to inactivate the protein, the glue wouldn't work. Knowing this, they hope they can figure out how to keep the barnacles off of boats and save all kinds of money in the shipping industry.
Links
Here's a link to the full story on Science Daily
How blood clots
Word of the day
Trypsin: A protease... which means it's an enzyme that breaks down proteins.
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