Jonathan Wilker: What sticky sea creatures can teach us about making glue
Jonathan Wilker: O que criaturas marinhas pegajosas podem nos ensinar sobre como fazer cola
Jonathan Wilker explores the science and engineering happening within our oceans. He works to understand the ways that sea creatures survive and how we can adapt their technologies to create new materials. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
on a field trip,
numa excursão de estudos
and take you all to the beach
and the salt spray.
we're getting knocked around by the waves,
batem na gente,
to stay in place.
e veremos que as rochas
by all sorts of sea creatures
de criaturas marinhas
there in place, no problem.
that if you want to survive
upon your ability to make glue, actually.
da sua capacidade de fazer cola.
to some of the heroes of our story,
alguns dos heróis da nossa história.
they're covering the rocks.
que eles cobrem as rochas.
e ficam colados nas rochas,
to each other, actually.
together as a group.
of an oyster reef,
de um recife de ostras,
extensive reef systems.
they can be meters deep,
e metros de profundidade;
dominant influence
marine ecosystem is going to be,
marinho costeiro,
is they're filtering the water constantly,
inside of these reefs.
moram dentro desses recifes.
what happens when a storm comes in,
quando uma tempestade vem,
first has to hit miles of these reefs,
primeiro esses recifes,
is going to be protected.
pretty much anywhere in the world,
em algum lugar do mundo,
with what barnacles look like.
familiarizados com as cracas.
estes são apenas três deles, fazem cola.
these are just three of them --
they stick to the rocks
e constroem comunidades,
and by doing this,
em termos de sobrevivência.
advantages they get.
is subjected to less of the turbulence
está sujeito a menos turbulência
that can happen from that environment.
que pudesse acontecer nesse ambiente.
in numbers thing,
keep away the predators,
wants to pick you up and eat you,
se eles estiverem todos colados.
if they're all stuck together.
with reproductive efficiency.
com a eficiência reprodutiva.
that when Mr. and Mrs. Barnacle decide,
o Sr. e a Sra. Craca decidem:
little baby barnacles" --
how they do that just yet --
como fazem isso ainda,
que é hora de se reproduzir,
efficiency is higher
reprodutiva deles é maior
how they do this, how do they stick,
como fazem isso, como se grudam.
all the details,
que ainda estamos tentando descobrir,
we're still trying to figure out,
que estamos tentando fazer.
that we're trying to do.
que temos em nosso laboratório,
systems we have in our lab,
is part of the system,
faz parte do sistema.
que há vários mexilhões,
in the bottom, there's a bunch of mussels,
we have the lights cycled,
more adhesives for us
quando a água é turbulenta.
we collect it, we study it.
nós a coletamos e estudamos.
they're in Maine in February,
em Maine, em fevereiro.
as far as we can tell.
parecem estar muito felizes.
of a small reef in South Carolina,
de um pequeno recife na Carolina do Sul,
is seeing how they attach to each other,
em como eles se juntam e se conectam.
in the bottom image
duas ostras grudadas uma à outra.
that are cementing to each other.
we'll cut them and look down,
of images we have here,
de imagens que temos aqui,
we'll have two shells,
temos duas conchas,
and the shell of another animal,
com a cola no meio.
na concha de cada animal,
in the shell of each animal,
actually looks different.
of fancy biology and chemistry tools
biológicas e químicas possíveis
is the structures are different
que as estruturas são diferentes
and it's quite interesting.
e é bem interessante.
before I tell you what this is.
"The Magic School Bus"?
"O Ônibus Mágico"?
"Fantastic Voyage," right?
"Viagem Fantástica"?
they had these characters
que encolhiam a níveis microscópicos,
to these microscopic levels,
all these biological structures?
essas estruturas biológicas?
except for it's real, in this case.
exceto que é real, neste caso.
two oysters that are stuck together,
completely filled in with the cement,
has lots of different components in there,
tem muitos compostos diferentes,
there are hard, non-sticky parts
há partes duras e antiaderentes
the non-sticky parts selectively
as partes antiaderentes
attaching the animals,
grudando os animais,
there's this sticky adhesive
um adesivo pegajoso que os mantém juntos.
nos imaginar voando ali e voltando.
and going back there.
we're doing to understand
que estamos fazendo para entender
is making these materials.
está fazendo esses materiais.
it's really exciting to learn.
é muito emocionante de aprender.
to do with this information?
fazer com essa informação?
of technological applications
what the animals are doing.
o que os animais estão fazendo.
or a mug or something like that?
ou caneca favorita ou algo assim.
of the hardware store.
onde ficam as colas.
cool people, because you're here,
por isso estão aqui,
and concerts --
that's on the shelf,
de cada adesivo da prateleira,
to put things back together,
consertar alguma coisa,
in a bucket of water.
em um balde com água.
We all know this.
Todos sabemos disso.
has solved this,
resolveu isso.
ways to be able to copy this ourselves.
a maneira de copiar isso nós mesmos.
the materials from the beach,
pegar os materiais da praia;
e tentarmos retirar o adesivo deles,
insuficiente para fazer algo com isso,
to do anything with,
o bom seria na escala de um vagão.
ideally maybe train car scale.
of one of the types of molecules
um dos tipos de moléculas
to make their glue,
molecules, they're called proteins,
chamadas de proteínas,
some fairly unique parts in them
those little parts of that chemistry,
e as juntamos com outras moléculas longas
into other long molecules that we can get
como os plásticos ou os polímeros.
on a really large scale,
as plastics or polymers,
simplifying what they do,
into these large molecules.
nestas grandes moléculas.
adhesive systems in doing this,
diferentes sistemas adesivos,
que parece muito boa, o que fazemos?
a new adhesive that looks pretty good,
colando coisas.
just sticking stuff together.
e colamos dois pedaços de metal
and glued together two pieces of metal
and thought we were very clever.
e achamos que éramos muito espertos.
quantitative about this most often,
against commercial adhesives,
com adesivos comerciais.
that are stronger than superglue.
que são mais fortes do que a supercola.
It's stronger than superglue.
"Mais forte do que a supercola".
que podemos fazer.
is one of our adhesive formulations,
das nossas formulações adesivas,
we're dispensing it completely underwater,
completamente na água,
an adhesive bond, or joint,
ou fazer uma junção de algo,
and just position it.
for a while, give it a chance,
damos-lhe um tempo,
on it, nothing fancy.
nada de especial.
in it, nothing fancy.
It's completely underwater.
está completamente submerso.
e nunca sei o que vai acontecer.
very strong underwater adhesion.
muito forte, debaixo da água.
or at least one of the strongest
a prova d'água mais forte,
that's ever been seen.
that the animals produce,
que os animais produzem.
It's pretty cool.
with these things?
fazer com essas coisas?
that you're probably really familiar with.
que provavelmente já conhecem.
your laptop, plywood in most structures,
no compensado na maioria das estruturas,
phone books, things like this.
listas telefônicas, coisas assim.
with the adhesives
com os adesivos usados nesses materiais.
a pior infratora.
or wood laminate in floors --
ou nos laminados de madeira nos pisos,
here is formaldehyde,
dos adesivos aqui é o formaldeído,
a lot of structures from these adhesives,
com esses adesivos,
a lot of this carcinogen.
are all permanent.
são todos permanentes.
or your car or even your laptop
com os carros ou com os laptops,
when you're done using it?
they end up in landfills.
que gostaríamos de poder reciclar.
of precious materials in there
and recycle them.
porque estão colados permanentemente.
together permanently.
para resolver alguns desses problemas:
to try and solve some of these problems,
is we've taken another long molecule
da química de adesão dos mexilhões.
chemistry from the mussels.
and we've got the mussels,
chamamos nosso polímero de "terra e mar".
it's also degradable,
que também é degradável,
under very mild conditions, with water.
muito simples, com água.
is we can set things up
e colá-las fortemente quando quisermos,
strongly when we want,
where a lot of us want to be.
muitos de nós queremos estar.
this is a place we do not want to be,
este é um lugar onde não queremos estar,
if you've had some surgery or an injury.
que sofreu uma cirurgia ou lesão.
look at how much you're making
vejam o quanto está envolvido,
as you pull things together.
à medida que se junta tudo,
não é nada bom.
It's not so good.
to hold together your bones,
para unir seus ossos,
ser perfurado pra manter a placa no lugar.
you have to drill out
em uma câmara de tortura medieval,
devised in a medieval torture chamber,
sistemas como esses por colas.
systems like these with adhesives.
but this is not easy.
mas não é fácil.
for adhesives in these cases.
você precisaria nesses casos.
an adhesive that is going to set
precisaríamos de uma cola
little picture there,
é formado por 60% de água,
are about 60 percent water,
I am a scientist and not an artist.
por isso que sou cientista e não artista.
you need for a good biomedical adhesive:
para uma boa cola biomédica:
in a material is pretty easy.
em um material é bem fácil.
But getting all three hasn't been done.
mas cumprir os três, ainda não.
eles são exigentes:
they get picky --
solidifique na hora da cirurgia".
on the same time frame as the surgery."
os tecidos do paciente remodelem o local."
can remodel the site."
mas estamos trabalhando nisso.
We're working on it.
all sorts of bones and skin
pele e de tecido macio e duro,
we'll whack it with a hammer.
in precise shapes.
em formas precisas.
materiais bem fortes,
some strong materials,
resistem à umidade,
like they're not toxic,
o problema da adesão em umidade,
we've solved the wet adhesion problem,
está na nossa mira para o futuro.
in our sights for the future.
to see things go farther down the road.
de ver as coisas avançarem mais.
you can imagine we might be better off
que podemos aprimorar se usarmos colas.
fake nails or eyelash extensions,
o que esses produtos usam?
e é algo que gostaríamos de fazer.
mais eficientes em energia serão.
they're going to be.
and get away from welding
e da soldagem e usar mais colas,
futura geração de transportes.
of transportation.
comes back to the beach.
"Como essas criaturas marinhas se grudam,
"How do these sea creatures stick?
com esta tecnologia?"
really a lot of things we can still learn
que ainda podemos aprender
you all to do in the future
todos vocês a fazer no futuro é:
laptops and cell phones
e telefones celulares não-recicláveis,
some of your own questions.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jonathan Wilker - Scientist, engineerJonathan Wilker explores the science and engineering happening within our oceans. He works to understand the ways that sea creatures survive and how we can adapt their technologies to create new materials.
Why you should listen
Jonathan Wilker is a professor of chemistry and materials engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, US. Prior to arriving at Purdue in 1999, he received a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, a PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a postdoctoral scholar at the California Institute of Technology. His research has been recognized with a Beckman Young Investigator Award, an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award. His teaching has also received several awards at Purdue. He is always on the lookout for new projects when at the beach or while underwater scuba diving.
Jonathan Wilker | Speaker | TED.com