science

Shown above, in a photo from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, is a piece of wood to which zebra mussels have attached themselves. Michigan officials are concerned about the mollusks because ever since they came into the Great Lakes from the Black Sea in a ship's ballast water they have taken over habitats in which they have no natural enemies, encrusting once-rocky lake bottoms where fish used to spawn, clogging intake pipes by which the Detroit area draws most of its drinking water and otherwise making nuisances of themselves. Via the canal that connects the Chicago River (which naturally flows into Lake Michigan) and the Illinois River (which drains into the Mississippi), the pests have now spread into the vast Mississippi River watershed, attaching themselves to any convenient hard surface, including to each other.

(There is a bright side to this environmental disaster. The mussels filter all sorts of stuff out of the water, including heavy metal pollutants, and thus have rendered Great Lakes water clearer and a bit less toxic.)

Now Purdue University chemistry professor Jonathan Wilker has found that saltwater mussels cure the tendrils of glue that they secrete from their feet with iron that they take from the water. The discovery of the chemical process by which mussel glue is hardened may have practical applications for the development of new adhesives and industrial materials. Moreover it may lead to new coatings that keep barnacles and other crustaceans from attaching themselves to ships, and given that the ones currently used tend to be copper-based and leave toxic compounds in waterways as they oxidize, Dr. Wilker's discovery could lead to more environmentally friendly ship hulls.

Wilker, who published his findings in the international edition of Angewandte Chemie, a prestigious chemistry journal, is continuing his research by looking at the glues that barnacles and other mollusks use to see if they are similar to those of saltwater mussels.



Also in this section:
Genome pioneer J. Craig Venter speaks in Panama
Putting the causes of Amazonia's deforestation in perspective
Long distance dispersal of species
Mussel glue
Gene-spliced crops use more pesticides

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