Stickiness

Today I learnt on stickiness, and I have decided to share it with you. Now usually proteins are substances that make objects adhere, while there are sometimes synthetic materials used instead of these natural proteins.

What makes objects stick ?

When materials are stuck together by glue, they create adhesive 'bridges' between the materials and if you were to separate them you would have to rip apart these materials. That is why it is far more easier to rip the paper rather than to open it at the glued flaps.   Another reason that makes object stick are the abilty to expand into tiny indents on surfaces. For example, if you were to cook eggs they would stick to the frypan because the egg white expands into the small 'holes' in the frypan making it stick. On the other hand when you use oil, the oil fills in the small 'holes' so the egg white can't expand into the frypan. An intresting fact is that pretty much every thing is adhesive, if you were two place two pure pieces of copper in a vaccum, they won't slide but instead stick together and slowly become, one big chunk of copper.

Sticky to others, but not to me.

Spiders spin their web in intricate shapes and design, and at the end they place little adhesive droplets on their webs to catch their prey. Many scientist are intrigued by how the spiders don't get stuck on the adhesive droplets themselves and scientists have brocken up in to two main hypotheses. The first one is that spiders step between the droplets, while the second one is that spiders have a oily substance that coat their feet so that they don't get stuck by their droplets. Personally, I agree with the second hypothesis because there could be a chance that the spiders accidentally step in the droplets then they won't be able to escape, plus animals aren't perfectt so there is definently a chance of a miss.