Scientists Developing Commercially Viable Synthetic Gecko

Gordon from Seattle writes to mention a CNN article about a new way to hang out. A British aerospace team is working on a super-sticky substance they're calling "Synthetic Gecko". It mimics the hairs on a gecko's foot, and may eventually be developed as a reusable adhesive. From the article: "Each of the microscopic setae on a gecko's foot has a mushroom shaped cap on the end, less than one-thousandth of a millimeter across. This ensures that the gecko's foot is in very close contact with the surface beneath. The cumulative attractive force, called van der Waals force, of these setae allows the lizard to scurry up walls and ceilings, and even hang from polished glass surfaces. In 2003 scientists at the University of Manchester produced a one centimeter patch of 'gecko tape,' but neither the University of Manchester nor University of California teams managed to produce the material in a greater quantity, unlike Haq and Sargent, who have already tested areas larger than 10 centimeters-squared."

Geckoes are always growing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Geckoes continually "shed" the hair on their feet, and regrow new hairs. So any hairs that do happen to get extremely dirty are naturally discarded after some time, and replaced with newly-grown clean hairs.

Re:Surface Dust

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Geckos probably lick their feet clean every once in a while, or have some other bio-mechanism to decontaminate their feet.

According to this science news article, [sciencenews.org] gecko feet are self cleaning. It's one of the properties that makes synthetic gecko adhesive so attractive.

Re:Surface Dust

[Anonymous Coward]

dust, sand, small sticks, etc. don't have enough surface area to generate enough Van der Waals force to effectively stick to the tape. this is why gecko's don't need to "lick there feet" to keep them from getting clogged with dust

Really, it doesn't scale

[arete]

It might not scale for other reasons, but it DEFINITELY doesn't scale for the same reason any surface effect doesn't scale.

We're going to make something 10x as long (which assumes a ~20 cm Gecko to get to man-sized, which I think is generous.)

So the surface area of the giant-gecko feet are 100x bigger. (10^2 - because you have length and width) But the Gecko ways 1000x as much (lenght, width, depth) So for a 10x scaling factor in length, you have 10x more mass PER surface area - in other words you stick 10x LESS well if you make a giant Gecko. Real Geckos have pretty big feet, too - and a cousin-post listed all sorts of reasons why humans aren't evolved to be surface-climbers.

But the other BIG thing to remember is that most surfaces are simply not made to have a hundred-fifty lbs STUCK to them. Have you ever tried to glue anything heavy to a painted wall? If you're lucky the glue fails and the thing falls. If you're unlucky the wall surface (paint) fails and a big piece rips off. If you're MORE unlucky the WALL fails - you do know that interior walls are NOT structural - they're just fireproofing. Only the studs are EVER structural. Drywall can't hold 20lbs sideways and never 150 lbs straight down. Most ceilings are actually worse for this...

And if you're falling because this happened, the chunk will be stuck to you, stopping you from catching yourself on anything else.

So in effect your spidey suit can only work where you have certain kinds of exposed structural materials, and even then a fair bit of luck and care.