Skip to main content

Tough as scales: Researchers create protective material inspired by fish skin

Protective wear inspired by nature
In a bid to build flexible and durable protective gear, researchers from McGill University turned to nature for inspiration and frequented a fish market to find test subjects.

Scientists often adopt structures found in nature for new functions. Artificial neural networks — an approach that has enabled great advances in AI — is modeled off of the human brain and nervous system. Harvard roboticists, for example, have built tiny drones that can perch like insects in order to conserve energy. Work smarter, not harder is a tenet of bio-inspired design.

Recommended Videos

“The fish scales we see on fish nowadays are the result of millions of years of trial and error through natural evolution,” Francois Barthelat, lead researcher at McGill’s Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Bioinspiration, told Digital Trends. “After all that time of fine tuning, we should expect that scales must be very good at what they are made for, in this case resisting bites from predators.”

Please enable Javascript to view this content

But not all scales evolve equally. After carrying dozens of striped bass back to the lab, sliding their scales under a microscope, and fracturing them to study their physical properties, Barthelat and his team realized they were probing the wrong species. So, they released the bass and caught a hardy alligator gar.

“The alligator gar is a particularly good model because its scales are very bony and extremely hard, much harder than the scales on your regular fish market fish,” Barthelat said. “Alligator gars are so well ‘armored’ that they are virtually impossible to cut, even with a hacksaw.”

The studies affirmed Barthelat’s assumption about the strength of scales — in fact, it showed scales to be the toughest collagen-based material known — but it also revealed the often counter-intuitive aspects of natural design, such as that smaller scales are less penetrable than larger ones.

Aided by a computer model, Barthelat and his team used their newfound knowledge about the optimal size, shape, and arrangement of scales to develop highly protective, ceramic-covered gloves. Future applications may help protect areas like the neck, knees, and elbows.

“Our bio-inspired scale design excels in applications where a balance between flexibility and protection is required,” Barthelat said. “We are now focusing on personal protection in hazardous industrial environments, and we have also started to explore applications in sports equipment.”

A paper detailing the research was published in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics,

Dyllan Furness
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Dyllan Furness is a freelance writer from Florida. He covers strange science and emerging tech for Digital Trends, focusing…
Dodge’s Charger EV muscles up to save the planet from ‘self-driving sleep pods’
dodges charger ev muscles up to save the planet from self driving sleep pods stellantis dodge daytona

Strange things are happening as the electric vehicle (EV) industry sits in limbo ahead of the incoming Trump administration’s plans to end tax incentives on EV purchases and production.

The latest exemple comes from Dodge, which is launching a marketing campaign ahead of the 2025 release of its first fully electric EV, the Daytona Charger.

Read more
Many hybrids rank as most reliable of all vehicles, Consumer Reports finds
many hybrids rank as most reliable of all vehicles evs progress consumer reports cr tout cars 0224

For the U.S. auto industry, if not the global one, 2024 kicked off with media headlines celebrating the "renaissance" of hybrid vehicles. This came as many drivers embraced a practical, midway approach rather than completely abandoning gas-powered vehicles in favor of fully electric ones.

Now that the year is about to end, and the future of tax incentives supporting electric vehicle (EV) purchases is highly uncertain, it seems the hybrid renaissance still has many bright days ahead. Automakers have heard consumer demands and worked on improving the quality and reliability of hybrid vehicles, according to the Consumer Reports (CR) year-end survey.

Read more
U.S. EVs will get universal plug and charge access in 2025
u s evs will get universal plug charge access in 2025 ev car to charging station power cable plugged shutterstock 1650839656

And then, it all came together.

Finding an adequate, accessible, and available charging station; charging up; and paying for the service before hitting the road have all been far from a seamless experience for many drivers of electric vehicles (EVs) in the U.S.

Read more