Hagfish are primitive 300-million year old eel-like creatures who dwell on the bottom of oceans.
And hagfish slime is one of the most unique biomaterials in the world.
When hagfish are attacked, they defend their spineless eel-like body by instantly shooting a thick gooey sticky slimy strand of mucous into the mouths and gills of their enemy.
Thus, the United States Navy is looking making hagfish slime by synthetically engineering this biomaterial in a lab in hopes of developing small tubes of the substance which can expand quickly into a defensive shield.
How it’s made: lab engineered e.coli bacteria produce alpha and gamma proteins, creating the basis of the slime. For the most part, that’s it.
So the next time you’re being attacked, just choke your predators with mucous strands of hagfish slime.
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