The Self-Assembling, Self-Healing Material Of The Future Is... Blood
Blood Clot Hsieh ChenScientists have figured out how clots form in the blood, and are using the same method to develop a new class of materials. Somewhere inside of your body right now, a delicate membrane is tearing open. Now a leak is springing, and fluids that were not supposed to have gotten past the membrane are gushing through at the point of the tear. Fortunately, this leak is very small and you can't feel it. Unfortunately, your insides have sprung many other leaks since that first one. Fortunately, at the site of leak #1, several long, sticky molecules that were previously coiled like fruit roll-ups have come unrolled in the sudden torrent, and they're sticking to small solid fragments and forming little globs that are getting tangled up with other globs, and now the whole blob is plugging the leak, patching things up temporarily until the reinforcements arrive....