Nothing quite beats the intransigence of a mussel. From glands in its sluglike foot, the animal secretes a glue that in less than five minutes hardens into a filament, or byssal thread, that will tether it for life to an intertidal rock. Within a few days, it has anchored its shell by a cable of several hundred such threads that will withstand years of pounding surf. Mussel glue can resist forces of a thousand pounds per square inch. Mussels can stick to Teflon. "I've gained an enormous respect for these creatures," Herbert Waite, a marine biochemist at the University of California at Santa Barbara, says. "They live in an environment of turbulence. They can't afford to make something flimsy."
Humans, alas, can and do. Our superglues, Krazy Glues, and specialized industrial glues work spectacularly well on dry land. Submerged, however, they pale in comparison with the mussel's product. "There's no ...
