'Gluing' soft materials without glue

If you're a fan of arts and crafts, you're likely familiar with the messy, sticky, frustration-inducing nature of liquid glues. But researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces now have a brand-new way to weld ...

Tigers ending their days in high-pressure cookers 

More tigers now live in illegal captivity, on so-called "tiger farms," than in the wild. The prominence of these farms is highest in Vietnam, China and Thailand. On the farms, tigers are raised as livestock for the sole purpose ...

How mussels make a powerful underwater glue

Blue mussels (Mytilus edulis) spend their days being buffeted by crashing waves. They manage to stay tethered to the rocks or their fellow mussels thanks to a highly effective underwater glue they produce. Because achieving ...

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Adhesive

An adhesive, or glue, is a mixture in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together. Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. The types of materials that can be bonded are vast but they are especially useful for bonding thin materials. Adhesives cure (harden) by either evaporating a solvent or by chemical reactions that occur between two or more constituents.

Adhesives are advantageous for joining thin or dissimilar materials, minimizing weight, and when a vibration dampening joint is needed. A disadvantage to adhesives is that they do not form an instantaneous joint, unlike most other joining processes, because the adhesive needs time to cure.

The earliest known date for a simple glue is 200,000 BC and for a compound glue 70,000 BC.

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