Iron Key Ingredient In Mussel “Glue”

The “glue” that saltwater mussels use to cling to rocks is made up of proteins cured with iron filtered from ocean water, a discovery potentially useful to adhesives makers, shippers and dentists, a U.S. chemist said on Monday. “These animals appear to use iron in a way that has never been seen before,” Purdue University chemistry professor Jonathan Wilker said in a statement from the West Lafayette, Indiana, school.

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