These tiny little crumbs look a lot like peppermints you’d use to freshen your breath after lunch, but you don’t want to eat these ones. What you see here are tiny spheres of a sort of latex liquid that are coated in calcium-carbonate nanoparticles. Inside those little beads is a new type of glue that only comes out when pressure is applied to the dry powder.
That means you can pour this glue in dry form onto whatever needs to stick together and then squish them to activate the glue. In testing, the scientist found the bond made is stronger than that of pressure sensitive adhesives like tape or Post-It notes.
I can only assume if you swallowed one it would seal your anus permanently. If you bit down on one, it would certainly give you the worst lockjaw in history.
[via New Scientist]
