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Materials science

How to suck like an octopus

Rubber sheets that reversibly bind and release substrates have been made by copying a subtlety in the shape of octopus suckers. The findings reveal how macro-scale biological structures can influence function. See Letter p.396

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Figure 1: An octopus-inspired adhesive.

A, Martin Richardson/Getty; B, S. Baik et al./Nature

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References

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Correspondence to Jonathan J. Wilker.

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Wilker, J. How to suck like an octopus. Nature 546, 358–359 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/546358a

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