Tag Archive for 'Mussel'

The thick-shelled river mussel (Unio crassus) squirts out regular water jets that land in the river water up to a meter away. Image credit: University of Cambridge.

Biologists Observe Highly Unusual Reproductive Behavior in Endangered Freshwater Mussels

Mar 14, 2023 by News Staff

In spring, female thick-shelled river mussels (Unio crassus) were seen moving to the water’s edge and anchoring into the riverbed, with their back ends...

Khairuloconcha lunbawangorum and Khairuloconcha sahanae. Image credit: Zieritz et al., doi: 10.1002/aqc.3695.

Two New, Rare Freshwater Mussel Species Discovered

Sep 7, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of scientists has discovered two new species of freshwater mussels endemic to the island of Borneo and established a new genus for...

A wild sea otter at Bennett Slough Culverts opening mussels using a stone. Image credit: Haslam et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-39902-y.

Study: Wild Sea Otters Leave Archaeological Traces

Mar 15, 2019 by News Staff

Sea otters (Enhydra lutris) are the only marine mammals that use stone tools while foraging, using them to break open hard-shelled foods. In a new study,...

Combinatorial and modular genetic strategy for engineering self-assembling underwater adhesives; abbreviations: Mfps - mussel foot proteins (Mfp3 and Mfp5 - major mussel adhesive foot proteins, have unstructured coil structures in solution and are critical to the underwater interfacial adhesion of mussels); CsgA - an amyloidogenic protein that is the major subunit of adhesive curli ﬁber in Escherichia coli (contains five stacked strand–loop–strand motifs mediated by conserved residues and can self-assemble into nanofibers via a rate-limiting nucleation step followed by fibril extension). Image credit: Chao Zhong et al.

Mussel-Inspired Waterproof Adhesives Could Help Heal Wounds, Repair Ships

Sep 23, 2014 by News Staff

Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have designed new mussel-inspired waterproof adhesives that could be used to heal wounds or repair...