Thursday, November 27, 2008

Hahhaa. From all my mugging, I've learnt something interesting from MS4003 (nanomaterials and biomaterials). Let me present to you : Geckos!
Geckos are renowned for their ability to stick to almost any surface with relative ease—they can hang from a tree branch by one toe, and combined, the bottoms of their feet could theoretically support the weight of a 110 kilogram man. Their feet are so sticky yet they are not covered in dirt and sand by the end of the day.

The reason is because of " Van der Waals forces"— attractive forces between the molecules in gecko feet and the molecules of the surface they are sticking to. The molecules have areas of slight positive or negative charge that attract each other (like mini magnets).

Since gecko toes are covered with as many as 2 million tiny hairs, and each hair then splits into 100 to 1,000 tiny branches, the number of mini magnets is immense. We can therefore use this "gecko" mechanism to create very strong adhesives. Maybe we can even turn ourselves into spiderman! A hairy spider man!LOL.

-Hong-

11/27/2008 01:04:00 AM