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Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz
Pete,
I remember a big announcement several years ago that scientists were studying the snail mucous because it had some incredible properties. i.e. it became a near solid when pressure was exerted by the snail's underside for forward locomotion but it also was an incredible lubricant after the snail had passed. Scientists thought at that time, a duplicate might make a really low loss transmission/clutch. Haven't heard much about it since.
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Good call Al! For more than you probably want to know about the subject, here's
a paper that discusses invertebrate mucus properties. They speculate that these critters control their mucus' adhesive and locomotive properties by protein expression.