Adhesion, symbiotic rivalry & stress management strategies

Your new Strategy Toolkit newsletter (July 28, 2025)

(1) A real sticky wicket

Adhesive technology that maintains high levels of performance under the most difficult circumstances is a never-ending engineering challenge. Adhesion underwater. Under changing pH, moisture conditions, motion, soft tissue regeneration. You name it.

No wonder researchers keep turning to the natural world for inspiration. Recently, scientists at MIT, Harvard, and the University of Minnesota examined just how remora, those sucker-like fish that hitch rides on other, larger species, do it. The results are impressive.

“Inspired by remoras—fish equipped with specialized adhesive discs—we developed the Mechanical Underwater Soft Adhesion System (MUSAS). Through detailed anatomical, behavioural, physical and biomimetic investigations of remora adhesion on soft substrates, we uncovered the key physical principles and evolutionary adaptations underlying their robust attachment. These insights guided the design of MUSAS, which shows extraordinary versatility, adhering securely to a wide range of soft substrates with varying roughness, stiffness and structural integrity.”*

* Kang, Z., Gomez, J.A., Ross, A.M. et al. Mechanical underwater adhesive devices for soft substrates. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09304-4