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INCHING
TOWARD PROGRESS
The inchworm, or moth caterpillar, is quite maneuverable. Lacking appendages
in the middle portion of its body, it moves forward by clamping down its
rear end, then elongating as it lurches forward to locate a spot to grip
its front clamp-like foot pads. Finally, the worm releases and contracts
its hindquarters to join the front, arched like the Greek letter omega,
and repeats. Thus, the worm can “inch” along slippery surfaces
and through small openings to hard-to-reach places.
Researchers in robotics at Era Endoscopy, in Pisa, Italy, have copied the
inchworm’s locomotion in an attempt to revolutionize colonoscopy.
Though a crucial diagnostic tool, particularly for cancer detection, a
colonoscope, forced through the colon’s twists and turns, can irritate
the walls. The procedure also risks puncturing the colon or causing severe
bleeding, as the scope’s stiff, bulky tail is angled awkwardly through
the colon to advance the device’s diagnostic head.
Era Endoscopy’s colonoscope, in contrast, moves like an inchworm, clamping
one end firmly to colon tissue while compressed air pushes the other end forward.
A doctor, using a joystick, directs a steering system behind the scope’s
head that helps the device navigate the bowel and adjusts the camera and light
source affixed to the scope’s head to provide a clear view of colon walls.
In the next generation, the robotic device will carry biopsy tools.
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STRONG
MUSSELS
While scuba diving off the coast of Southern
California, Purdue University chemistry professor
Jonathan Wilker marveled at how tiny blue mussels
(Pteriomorpha) clung to rocks being pounded
by surf. Back in his laboratory, Wilker deciphered
the recipe for the mussels’ strong glue,
then created a new generation of nontoxic, surgical
adhesives that could set in a wound’s wet
environment.
The mussels, Wilker discovered, adhere to myriad
surfaces—even Teflon—by producing
and exuding, from their feet, collagenlike microfilaments
with a glue composed of protein molecules. Iron,
which mussels filter from seawater, helps the
proteins bond and cure, creating an adhesive
almost as strong as Krazy Glue, but less toxic,
slower to cure (in surgery, a trait that would
leave time to correctly position what’s
being glued together) and without becoming brittle.
Using the molecular structure of mussel adhesive
as a blueprint, Wilker has begun creating polymers
that could one day be used to close wounds or
reconstruct nerves, or for scaffolding upon which
cells and new tissue might grow.
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