Posted on 10/10/2008 8:23:32 AM PDT by BGHater
Geckos have long inspired scientists and super-hero fans alike with their ability to scamper up vertical walls and cling to ceilings with a single toe. In recent years, people have attempted to create materials that match those spectacular abilities, in the hope of creating new advanced adhesives, or even car braking systems.
Now US chemists claim to have made one based on nanotubes that it is 10 times stickier than some gecko feet. Even more impressively, like a real gecko foot, it can also be easily unstuck with a tug in the right direction.
Gecko's superhero toes are covered in microscopic hairs, known as setae, with even smaller branches at the tips, called spatulae.
These ensure that a gecko's foot has a large surface area in contact with any surface, maximising the weak but ever-present attraction between adjacent molecules known as the van der Waals force.
A close of up the structures on a gecko's foot, compared with the nanotubes that make up a synthetic mimic that is even stickier than the real thing (Image: Science)
(Excerpt) Read more at technology.newscientist.com ...
I can’t seem to leave this article.
Aern’t these the same carbon nanotubes that the Japenese want to use to build the space elevator? Supposed to be much, much stronger than steel.
LoL.. pull in the right direction..
My concern would be ‘righty tighty’ or be wrong and oops.
My table falls apart.
Anyway, kinda on a similar thread, where scientist hope to use ‘electric’ eel technology in the future.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2100962/posts
If I had a nickle for every time I uttered that phrase....
Gecko adhesive is so effective that he believes it could one day find use in car braking systems. He calculates it could stop a car travelling at 80 kilometres per hour in a distance of just 5 metres, using just one third of a square metre of the substance.
This should cure peoples bad tailgating habits.
I'm in if it's on politicians.....
Isn’t this just nano-velcro?
Great, now sone one invent the system to smooth the g-force braking. Ouch.
Just wait till PETA hears about this!!!
Great, there goes my 18 year career in the adhesive business.
Nothing like a 5 G deceleration to get your attention. Better make the seat belts a lot stronger.
“Gecko adhesive is so effective that he believes it could one day find use in car braking systems. He calculates it could stop a car travelling at 80 kilometres per hour in a distance of just 5 metres, ....”
Unfortunately an unbelted driver will be propelled through the windshield and onto the hood of the car.
That'd be kind of hard on the passengers, wouldn't it?
Welcome back Laz!
Never store the gekko-grip next to the astroglide.
Even worse, I can see having break-down furniture which I have to remember which direction to pull each section.
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