Synthetic ‘slime’ to Help US Navy Trap Enemy Ships

The U.S. Navy plans to deter enemy ships and smuggler's boats using super expanding slime aimed at the the vessels' propulsion system.

Currently, the US Navy stops boats particularly suspected smugglers by using a pneumatic launcher that fires a plastic rope designed to get tangled up in the boat’s propeller. But it is not very environmentally-friendly and is hard to disentangle once fired, NewScientist  reported Wednesday.

The synthetic slime, created by a research team at Utah State University, has been awarded a 15-month Navy contract to carry out the work.

Based on the slime of a real, eel-like creature called a hagfish, it defends itself against attackers by using a jet of slime to fill predators’ mouths and gills with goo. This slime swells up several thousand times when it comes into contact with sea water.

“We are attempting to create hagfish thread keratins synthetically. The problem is that farming hagfish for these threads is likely impossible necessitating producing individual proteins that comprise thread keratin. We have chosen to produce the proteins in E. coli due to our group’s experience, the economics of scaling the process, as well as the robust amount of protein produced in this system,” as told to Digital Trends by Justin Jones, an assistant professor in the Department of Biology at Utah State University.

Once the slime proteins have been manufactured using modified E. coli bacteria, they will be formed into synthetic fibers.