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No One Is Prepared for Hagfish Slime
- rhn_mk1 8y agoThe title is clickbaity, but the article is a nice introduction to one weird animal.
- igouy 8y agoThe Prius photo is enough to justify the title.
- craftyguy 8y agoI remember when it happened, it was quite horrific: https://www.opb.org/news/article/eels-truck-highway-oregon-slime-101/ https://www.opb.org/news/article/eels-truck-highway-oregon-s...
- xoa 8y agoI guess a little? I can see what you mean but in the scheme of things it doesn't seem too bad, though perhaps I've become a bit inured to such titles at this point. At least in one respect (though perhaps they didn't mean it that way) it also seems to be pretty on point: from the sound of it no one is prepared for it, because hagfish slime defies our normal developed common sense about material properties. It's described as being quite unique, and the videos they have there are kind of wild. At any rate though yeah, I found it a fascinating little read. It is pretty wild to see what sort of adaptions can come out in the pursuit of specialized niches, and to see expectations about order of development flipped on their heads. The material properties done with the same basic building blocks vs our current knowledge of chemistry are also really interesting from a tech perspective, and might open up new avenues for biomimicry. Spider silk is probably the most classic example, but this water version seems equally impressive in its own way. And so many mysteries in this one animal we've yet to understand! It's an amazing world.
- anitil 8y agoCrazy quote: "Their skin is actually more efficient at absorbing nutrients than their own intestines.". What bizarre animals