My eye was caught be a casual comment in the short review of /Nat.
Comm./ 10.1038/ncomms4534 (2014)
It begins like this...
Biomaterials
*Slime Fibers
<http://app.aaas-science.org/e/er?s=1906&lid=43584&elq=65bb42dd31a3460f9554bf8a237b299b>*
Marc S. Lavine
"When attacked, hagfish will release protein threads and mucin vesicles,
which interact with seawater to form copious quantities of slime. Before
release, the threads exist as coiled skeins that occupy almost the
entire volume of specialized gland thread cells. The threads unravel in
a fraction of a second from a 150-µm-long ellipsoid bundle to a thread
that is 100 times longer, which clearly requires sophisticated ordering
within the cell...."
It was that phrase, "sophisticated ordering" that caught my eye. This is
a matter of some engineering and physics interest, in fact. Consider
the wire-steered missile... or the driven electrodes of the Taser.... or
the sail lines stowed in the rope bags on a sail-boat.
It turns out that climbers and sailors favor the sophisticated packing
method called 'random stuffing' - a method which avoids the snags and
snarls of dispensing regular hanks of rope.