I rather doubt CA adhesives were copied from barnicles. CA is rather different chemistry from any biomolecules. Also, CA reacts rapidly when there is any water around. Since most living things are full of water, they would have a hard time synthesizing CA without it immediately reacting.
A lot of commercial chemical products were invented by chemists who were just trying to make new molecules. Sometimes they have a target behaviour in mind, sometimes they just get lucky when one of the new molecules does something useful and they happen to notice. Once chemists discovered polymerization, a rather large number, both in industrial labs and acedemic, set out to make molecules that would polymerize. Rather a large number were discovered. There turn out to be quite a few different types of chemical reactions that will cause polymerization and a wide variety of different types of molecular structures that can be built. I strongly suspect CAs were discovered by a chemist who set out purposely to make a new class of molecules and investigate their properties. He or she would actually have sat down at a table and drawn out the chemicals he hoped to make, and the reactions he hoped to use to make them. I suspect the chemist who invented CAs probably already had some idea that they would have certain types of chemical reactivity and may have made them with a possible application in mind. He or she may not have known the details in advance, but had a general idea based on what was already know about the chemistry of similar molecules. Of course sometimes a chemist puts together a molecule so different from known ones that its behaviour is hard to predict. That can get them some nice pats on the back from colleagues, and maybe tenure or a promotion. There are a lot of organic chemists in the world and they put an astonishingly large amount of brain power and work into figuring out how molecules behave and how to make new ones. Mark Holm [EMAIL PROTECTED] RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off.
