Bioadhesive for marine sensors

The lives of most sea creatures remain largely mysterious. Bound to boats or land, researchers rely on sensors to collect data and piece together how marine animals move through their environments. But attaching portable data collectors to small, squishy beasts like squid is incredibly challenging . "They needed to suture the sensor to those marine animals," explains mechanical engineer Xuanhe Zhao of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Now Zhao has combined forces with T. Aran Mooney , a marine biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to alter a bioadhesive designed for sealing human wounds. They've used it to, instead, stick sensors to delicate marine creatures ( Nat. Commun. 2024, DOI: 10.1038/s41467 -024-46833-4 ). The new adhesive is made from a combination of polyacrylic acid, polyvinyl alcohol, and N -hydroxysuccinimide ester. The network of physically cross-linked polyacrylic acid absorbs water off the surface of a squid's skin. The covalently cross-linked network