Science magazine offers a briefing on a paste modeled on barnacle glue that sticks to wet surfaces within 15 seconds – making it a perfect coagulant to stop bleeding wounds:
The marine crustaceans can glom onto nearly anything—from ships to whales—thanks to an oil they secrete that primes surfaces by sweeping away contaminants, Wired reports. In a new study, scientists made their own synthetic version of barnacles’ glue by grinding up adhesive sheets and mixing them with silicone oil that repels blood. The substance was able to stop bleeding in rat and pig models in as few as 15 seconds, they report this month in Nature Biomedical Engineering.