Porcupine Quills Could Inspire Better Medical Devices

摘要

The secret behind a porcupine's painful quills are tiny barbs that help quills go in smoothly and not come out. Research into the function of these barbs could lead to improvements in bandages and hypodermic needles, says Jeffrey Karp, a bioengi-neer at Harvard Medical School in Boston. His team plunged barbed quills from North American porcupines, quills whose barbs they had sanded off, quills from an African porcupine that naturally lack barbs, and a quill-sized hypodermic needle into samples of pig skin.