Ice crystals cannot paste polar bear leather
Asiffhotographer1 / shutte rstock
Polar bears Having a secret superpower that has seen the image.
It has long been known for the indigenous towns of the Arctic, who have used the property of the leather, but now only scientists noticed and analyzed. Cellar At Bergen University Norway and his colleagues have shown that resistance to the ice of the polar bears is due to natural oils secreted on natural hair, rather than the owner of the leather.
Holst is a physicist who examines the properties of surfaces. The interests of the polar bears began to see a television questionnaire, see the bears barely appear in the infrared cameras are so well isolated. This means that when the outer leather temperature was below freezing, Holst realized, but he never saw a polar bear in fauna-covered fauna films, even after swimming in sub-zeros.
“And then I thought, well, doesn’t frost have any problems? How do you don’t make the ice accumulation mixed according to these circumstances?”
After all, many other earth mammals are a problem in cold environments, Musk Ox to explorers. Holsts asked researchers at the Norwegian Polar Institute for the Polar Bear if they do not freeze. None, but they decided to research together.
Holst and his colleagues got samples of polar bear leather From Svalbard They compared themselves to Norway and man’s hair. The strength needed to remove ice polar ice was found that it was a quarter of the needed human hair – that the bear can easily shake.
Cleaning polar bear skins cleaning the ice with ice, suggesting that oily hair is the key to its properties. This substance known as Sebum is secreted by the glands associated with hair follicles.
Bear Polar Sebum lacks a substance called Sebum in Squalene, especially in the aquatic mammals, the group has been found. It also has some unusual fatty acids. These could be only for polar bears, but we are unsure, therefore, few research has seen the composition of Animal Sebum, as Holst says.
Arctic peoples like Inuit, traditionally prepared the polar bear, unlike the methods used in Sebum, unlike other skins. They also use the land in ways that use the Ice-resistant properties.
For example, inuit hunters in Greenland put the hunters under the legs of the chairs that put small polar groves to stop the ice stuck. They also threw the polar bear leather to the soles of the boots while they catch animals, avoiding noise made by ice cream-covered surfaces.
Holst’s team is now exploring potential applications, such as creating environmentally friendly ski waxes that are not environmentally friendly non-long-term fluorocarbon compounds used to prevent icing.
Bear polar sebum-based hair wax can also help people who work in cold environments. “I didn’t think about that application, but that should work,” Holst says. “I think you gave me a new idea.”
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