Slashdot Mirror
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."
I can hardly wait! When this is out I can /really/ play Spiderman!!
I get the feeling the scientists said they're switching to Geico as their insurer, and the reporter got it all mixed up.
I mean, one can legitimately mistake "gecko" and "Geico".
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
This story is reminiscent of the intrepid discoverers of the elusive Velcro animal of 40 years ago.
...as long as the synthetic geckos aren't made into shill whores for low rent insurance companies.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Every surface outside of a clean room is coated with dust. Unless there is some cleaning mechanism, this will clog with dust and become non-sticky. Geckos probably lick their feet clean every once in a while, or have some other bio-mechanism to decontaminate their feet. How will this syntha-gecko sticky pad keep clean?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
We're lucky they found it before it was hunted to extinction by the naugabeast.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Wasn't one of the problems with the "gecko tape" that it was "too" sticky?
That is; _everything_ sticks to it, thus all the dust/dirt/hair/etc. would make the tape unusable in a short time.
Obviously, real geckos don't have this problem. You don't see them walking around with sticks, dirt and sand stuck to their feet, so how do they solve that?
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
I've seen a lizard leap onto a pane of glass and scurry up - almost gave up the hunt but I didn't want it freaking me out in the middle of the night. They're as sticky as that protective film that people never remove from the plastic faceplates on radios /and/ they change colors, formidable pests. If only we could crack the secrets of lizard technology.. Cars that run on flies with tires that could adhere to any surface...
"Although the defendant manufactures and sells these 'GeckoBoots' to the public, the public is not warned that the average kitchen ceiling is painted and thus not an appropriate surface for the GeckoBoots, nor is the public warned against attempting to use GeckoBoots near a dishdrainer filled with glasses and knives...."
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Pretty sure that some geckos are amphibious. So in effect, their environment would clean their feet.
That will come as a great relief to the gecko population around my neighbourhood - which I hunt and tie to my hands and feet to I can hang out on the ceiling.
Can you imagine the rock climbing possibilities!
As a rock climber, this is too cool.
Trad, Sport and Gecko? That would be something.
{insert Mozilla joke here}
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Here are some more slashdot stories concerning Gecko feet.
Gecko's Feet Power New RAM Chips
Gecko Feet and Antigravity
Gecko Feet Inspire Sticky Tape
time is a perception of a being's consciousness
time is your 6th sense, the wierd ones are 7+
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.
Can we hang out with our WANGUES out?
Tastes just like real gecko!
We'll be seing the Gieco Geko in real life
You mean the one that lets me save 15% on my car insurance?
One square meter of the stuff on a small family sized car could save you up to 15%
[/sarcasm]
Greptile
Worked pretty well, and even improved the grip between the gloves and stuff that didn't have the material on it. Only problem was the haird tend to wear out/fall off over time, so now those gloves have a few bald spots where the rubberish material has worn through and they aren't nearly as grippy
Tm
Support TBI Research: http://www.raisinhope.org
Before you even try...Do NOT use this to masturbate!!! Seriously, you WILL regret it.
Don't you find it cruel that they are killing poor geckos just so we can use their feet? I do.
Great new book on Evolution: The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins
A synthetic gecko, or synthetic gecko-derived adhesives?
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
Why would I want a synthetic lizard when I can buy a real lizard at the pet store? The last thing I need is a glow-in-the-dark lizard blending in with the blue lights on my computer at night.
I keep waiting for someone to make these into Spidey gloves... would be pretty cool at first, til everyone realizes they don't lock their attic windows. Companies wondering how someone got inside when everything was locked, etc... it would completely change security practices. Pretty neat though when they figure out someone crawled in a skylight, across the ceiling and down the wall behind the cameras.
Still I hope someone makes these, it'll start some new extreme sport craze... wall-ball or something. Whee!
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
Will this synthetic gecko bug me about my auto-insurance company?
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
I have no doubt that The Military has possessed this technology since, at the very latest, 1952.
Won't the scientists be infringing on GEICO's trademark? Will the synthetic geckos also help people save money on car insurance???
Gordon.
Palaeontologists suspect that, unlike the gecko's feet, the long-extinct Velcrociraptor's were self-dirtying.
I mean, try to get anything in velcro without little bits of lint and string getting stuck in there. It's impossible!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
That's a sad tale; the noble Connecticut Nauga, hunted to near-extinction purely for its hyde...
Don't believe me? Just read the official Naugahyde History page. (Those people have too much free time on their hands.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
1st of all this is not going to work for your average adult human.
Why you might ask? Well I knew you would, well at least in your head.
Besides sticking to things, you have to take into consideration basic human body mechanics. Yeah I know, reality is so pesky! Consider things that climb, and climb well. Lizards, Monkeys, insects, all the fauna in natures lovely wild kingdom. What do they all in common? Well, since you asked, and I knew you would, even if it was in your own head. Here is your answer:
ALL of these creatures have equal length limbs!
Yes even or favorite relative, the chimpanzee. Also, in proportion to their size, they are all also endowed with vastly more muscle strength then humans. Ever seen your favorite monkey / gorilla play with a steel belted radial? They fling the thing around like we would a hula-hoop!
No not wanting to be a TOTAL kill-joy, I can see where humans could have lots of fun with this, but don't expect to see your average nerd/geek scaling a glass tower anytime soon. Our legs are way to long. Our arms are way to short and week in comparison to our legs and or climbing posture would be all wrong, with our asses hanging out into the breeze.
Being a pretty damn good rock climber myself, I can see some wonderful advantages I could have, but its not as great as everyone things its going to be. Gloves and shoes? Well that great and all, but you have to consider what is taking our full body weight. Good climbers, and I know some really good ones, can do one finger pull-ups, they are that strong, but a glove is going to exert the wrong kind of pressure/grip. Perhaps you might not slip, but you will have to keep your fingers curled over whatever you are using for a hand hold, and that still will lead to finger / hand fatigue that every climber experiences.
Perhaps a glove and shoe will be engineered that will evenly distribute the strain along the length of the forearm and the length and contours of the ankle and calf, but until then its going to still be a clumsy system that will put even more strain on our joints and limbs that already badly designed for climbing vertical surfaces.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
...It doesn't scale linearly. You would need a heck of a lot to stick a human to a wall.
Melissa
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Hello, Human Fly here! Come on, I spent all night dying my underwear.
"Microscopic setae and Van der Waals' force! WOOOOOOOOOO!"
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
Two words
Knee
Pads
Our legs might be way longer than our arms, but from the butt to the knee is just the right length for some serious wall crawling. With an entire body suit of the stuff you could for example use an entire arm to hang climb up instead of just your hands and feet.
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.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
1) I'm sure humans are adaptable and can figure things out- you don't have to fasten the sticky bits to the feet and hands y'know. Especially when humans are likely to want to have their hands and fingers free to manipulate stuff - opening/fixing stuff or answering the phone and checking email 100 metres up in the air ;).
:).
Also if the sticky bits are at the knee/shins and not the feet, you could hang by the forearm pads and then peel off+use the feet to jump at the same time. Harder to do that if the sticky bits were at the feet (you could have sticky bits at the feet just not as sticky).
2) There are quite a number of people with accidentally shortened legs, might be good fun for them
Technically, Velcro is a plant
Support garments are the obvious future for this product. No more straps, clamps, harness... Body parts will look more natural, move more gracefully, conform better, and beachwear will be truly stunning!
This will change important parts of our lives more than any recent technology development.
...omphaloskepsis often...
Brilliance like that is why we're still beating those superstrong gorillas.
I'm not impressed. Seems so easy, a cave man could have come up with it...
"Criminals are a gravity-fearing and downward-looking lot. I must become a creature of the ceiling. I shall become a gecko."
"Knowledge, sir, should be free to all!"
~Harcourt Fenton Mudd
This special kind of biomimetics is also being researched elsewhere, for example at the Max-Planck-Institute in Stuttgart, Germany. An insightful article can be downloaded from here.
You could get in, but you couldn't get out... very easily!
Weeeee......
this commercially viable synthetic gecko has been around for years.
So you're saying what Climbers do for fun is impossible now? This would make tetherless climbing 10 times safer.
Since the stuff can support the weight of a small family car, how about a set of tires with Synth-o-setae (tm) on the treads? Traffic across the bay too much for ya? Drive across the underside of a bridge. Lot full? Park on the side of that building. And someone finally gets to prove that their Hummer really can "climb a tree".
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
... woke up on the wrong side of the rock!
I see a "commercially viable synthetic gecko" on TV all the time. It tries to sell me car insurance.
Sorry, wrong article. I wanted Geico, not Gekko.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything. - Neitzsche
I totally agree, it will advance climbing quite a bit and scrambling will reach new levels of speed. But if you think about how climbing works, the mechanics of it, you will begin to see why it wont be that extraordinary. Climbers use leverage, grip and lots of compression force to keep their bodies firmly on the rocks. What are the resting positions of a climber? A Hand Jam, wedging toes into cracks and fissures into a rock face, or in a vertical crack that you can wedge your whole body into, not hanging upside down.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
Welcome our new human/synthetic-gecko hybrid overlords?
Consider that the reason climbers use lots of compression force is because we don't yet have these sticky pads. If I could just cling, I'd worry less about jamming body parts into holes in rocks. My big question is how easily we'd be able to let go. I've had rocks detach themselves from the surface, and I'd rather not be without a way to let go of the rock.
Can Geckos climb on polished conductive surfaces, say a piece of chrome?
... even a caveman can use it? (ducks)
Right, so.. this news is at least two years old.. And /. just caught onto it? I thought I originally saw this on /. two years ago even...
http://docinthemachine.com/2006/12/12/geckosintheo r/
>> Why would I want a synthetic lizard when
I can buy a real lizard at the pet store? The
last thing I need is a glow-in-the-dark
lizard blending in with the blue lights
on my computer at night.
Why would I want a REAL gecko climbing up my walls, eating bugs,
falling in my soup, etc,
when I can have a SYNTHETIC one powering my Firefox?
OMIGEK, it's DEJA VU!
.
- aqk
F U
As I quietly chuckle, yes I can see some poor sod screeming into the abys as he follows the 500 lb boulder that just came loose that he can't let go of.
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!