The Chemistry of ... Glue

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."