Cucumber’s Smart Skin

The Sea Cucumber’s Smart Skin
Sea cucumbers are animals that live on seabeds and coral reefs. The texture of their' body can be lumpy, bumpy, or even spiky. They are amazingly flexible, becoming as pliable as wax or as stiff as a board within minutes or even seconds. Such flexibility allows sea cucumbers to wriggle their' way into tiny crevices and then stiffen so that predators cannot pull them out. The secret of the sea cucumber lies in its remarkable skin.

Consider: The sea cucumber’s skin has three states—stiff, medium, and soft. To change between states, sea cucumbers link or unlink fibers in their skin. They do so by activating different stiffening or softening proteins.

Stiffening proteins form tiny bridges, or chains, between fibers in the connective tissue, making the skin more rigid. Softening proteins unchain the fibers, making the skin softer. Sea-cucumber skin can become so soft that it seems to melt.

Scientists are developing materials that mimic the adaptability of sea-cucumber skin. One of their' aims is to create electrodes for brain surgery that are stiff enough to be placed in precisely the right spot but that will also then soften. Such adaptability in electrodes would reduce the likelihood that the body would reject them.

Seems we follow and improvise from nature eh!

Talking of skins, take the eel. If one catches an eel and takes the slime off it skin, and you can do this as many times as you like,  it forms a the shape you leave it in. So if one rubbs some - says-  around ones arm you can make it a Plaster. AND It's medical elements are fantastic. A built in remedy to cure so very much.
The medical world are looking deeply into this too apparently.

THE Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) is one of the most heat-tolerant land animals known. When the midday Saharan sun forces the ant’s predators to seek shade, the ant makes brief forays from its burrow in search of food, which consists of other insects killed by the intense heat.
Consider: The silver ant’s assets include a compound heat shield made up of a covering of special hairs on the top and sides of its body and a hairless underside. The hairs, which give the ant a silvery sheen, are tiny tubes with a triangular cross section. Their' two outward-facing surfaces have microscopic corrugations that run the length of the hair, while the inward-facing surface is smooth. This design serves two functions. First, it enables the hairs to reflect solar radiation in the visible and near-infrared ranges. Second, it helps the ant to dissipate body heat absorbed from the environment. Meanwhile, the ant’s hairless underside reflects radiation that is in the mid-infrared range and emanates from the desert floor. The Saharan silver ant’s compound heat shield helps the insect to keep its body temperature below the maximum it can tolerate—128.5 degrees Fahrenheit (53.6°C). Inspired by that tiny creature, researchers are working to develop special coatings that enhance passive cooling—that is, cooling without the aid of fans or other devices.