kellychaos
May 17th, 2003, 12:05 PM
I'm getting me a Spiderman suit. Looky ... they almost have the stickey shoes down:
Synthetic gecko hairs promise walking up walls
19:00 14 May 03
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
The prospect of being able to emulate a gecko and walk up a wall and across the ceiling has come a step closer to reality. Scientists in California have begun to work out how to make a material coated with synthetic gecko hairs. If engineers could create a material that matches the nimble lizard's incredible grip, the applications would be endless.
We could make super-grip shoes for athletes and tyres that hold the road better in all weathers, for example. And in Hollywood, actors playing superheroes like Spiderman or Neo from The Matrix could climb walls and walk on the ceiling without the studios resorting to computer graphics.
The hairs on a gecko's feet - called setae - are the key to its remarkable grip on just about any surface, rough or smooth, wet or dry. The tips of the setae are so sticky that geckos can hang from a ceiling with their entire weight suspended from a single toe.
Reptilian grip
But as recently as last year, there was still debate about why those tips were so adhesive. Some people believed that gluey chemical interactions on their surface were responsible. But then Ron Fearing and his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley showed that the adhesion is in fact due to very weak intermolecular attractive forces called van der Waals forces.
Full Article (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993726)
Synthetic gecko hairs promise walking up walls
19:00 14 May 03
Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
The prospect of being able to emulate a gecko and walk up a wall and across the ceiling has come a step closer to reality. Scientists in California have begun to work out how to make a material coated with synthetic gecko hairs. If engineers could create a material that matches the nimble lizard's incredible grip, the applications would be endless.
We could make super-grip shoes for athletes and tyres that hold the road better in all weathers, for example. And in Hollywood, actors playing superheroes like Spiderman or Neo from The Matrix could climb walls and walk on the ceiling without the studios resorting to computer graphics.
The hairs on a gecko's feet - called setae - are the key to its remarkable grip on just about any surface, rough or smooth, wet or dry. The tips of the setae are so sticky that geckos can hang from a ceiling with their entire weight suspended from a single toe.
Reptilian grip
But as recently as last year, there was still debate about why those tips were so adhesive. Some people believed that gluey chemical interactions on their surface were responsible. But then Ron Fearing and his colleagues at the University of California at Berkeley showed that the adhesion is in fact due to very weak intermolecular attractive forces called van der Waals forces.
Full Article (http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993726)