Butterfly proboscis inspired 'straw' to sip fluid from cells

Washington, November 23 (ANI): A scientist is getting inspiration from a butterfly's proboscis to make small probes that can sample the fluid inside of cells.

The scientist in question is Konstantin Kornev of Clemson University in the US.

A butterfly's proboscis looks like a straw - long, slender, and used for sipping - but it works more like a paper towel, according to Kornev.

At the scales at which a butterfly or moth lives, liquid is so thick that it is able to form fibers.

The insects' liquid food - drops of water, animal tears, and the juice inside decomposed fruit - spans nearly three orders of magnitude in viscosity.

Pumping liquid through its feeding tube would require an enormous amount of pressure.

"No pump would support that kind of pressure. The liquid would boil spontaneously," said Kornev.

Instead of pumping, Kornev's findings suggest that butterflies draw liquid upwards using capillary action - the same force that pulls liquid across a paper towel.

The proboscis resembles a rolled-up paper towel, with tiny grooves that pull the liquid upwards along the edges, carrying along the bead of liquid in the middle of the tube.

This process is not nearly as affected by viscosity as pumping.

Kornev has been recently awarded an NSF (National Science Foundation) grant to develop artificial probes made of nanofibers that use a similar principal to draw out the viscous liquid inside of cells and examine their contents. (ANI)