{"id":121892,"date":"2021-04-24T06:23:46","date_gmt":"2021-04-24T13:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/synthetic-gelatin-like-material-mimics-lobster-underbellys-stretch-and-strength"},"modified":"2021-04-24T06:23:46","modified_gmt":"2021-04-24T13:23:46","slug":"synthetic-gelatin-like-material-mimics-lobster-underbellys-stretch-and-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/04\/synthetic-gelatin-like-material-mimics-lobster-underbellys-stretch-and-strength","title":{"rendered":"Synthetic gelatin-like material mimics lobster underbelly\u2019s stretch and strength"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/synthetic-gelatin-like-material-mimics-lobster-underbellys-stretch-and-strength.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>**A lobster\u2019s underbelly is lined with a thin, translucent membrane that is both stretchy and surprisingly tough.** This marine under-armor, as MIT engineers reported in 2019, is made from the toughest known hydrogel in nature, which also happens to be highly flexible. This combination of strength and stretch helps shield a lobster as it scrabbles across the seafloor, while also allowing it to flex back and forth to swim.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>A lobster\u2019s underbelly is lined with a thin, translucent membrane that is both stretchy and surprisingly tough. This marine under-armor, as MIT engineers reported in 2019, is made from the toughest known hydrogel in nature, which also happens to be highly flexible. This combination of strength and stretch helps shield a lobster as it scrabbles across the seafloor, while also allowing it to flex back and forth to swim.<\/p>\n<p>Now a separate MIT team has fabricated a hydrogel-based material that mimics the structure of the lobster\u2019s underbelly. The researchers ran the material through a battery of stretch and impact tests, and showed that, similar to the lobster underbelly, the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/synthetic+material\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">synthetic material<\/a> is remarkably \u201cfatigue-resistant,\u201d able to withstand repeated stretches and strains without tearing.<\/p>\n<p>If the fabrication process could be significantly scaled up, materials made from nanofibrous hydrogels could be used to make stretchy and strong replacement tissues such as artificial tendons and ligaments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>**A lobster\u2019s underbelly is lined with a thin, translucent membrane that is both stretchy and surprisingly tough.** This marine under-armor, as MIT engineers reported in 2019, is made from the toughest known hydrogel in nature, which also happens to be highly flexible. This combination of strength and stretch helps shield a lobster as it scrabbles [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":544,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/544"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}