Artificial Gecko Adhesive, Now In Experimental Glue 102
thefickler writes "Scientists at the University of Dayton have created a peel-on, peel-off glue which mimics the wall-climbing abilities of Spiderman. The substance, based on the feet of the Gecko lizard, is three times stickier than existing adhesives. The material is so strong that a 4×4mm pad would be enough to hold a 1.5kg object such as a hardcover book. However, it's likely too expensive for consumer use: one British scientist calculates that a single Post-it note using the glue would cost around a thousand dollars." We've mentioned the possibilities of synthetic gecko technology several times before, including as applied in this wall-climbing robot; commercial applications have seemed just around the corner for a while now.
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yOUR
Isn't the lameness filter designed to block posts like this one?
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Give yourself a rest, and give everyone else back their bandwidth, and stop already. You have an axe to grind, maybe. But the rest of the world just isn't interested. Go get some help.
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That seems to be a weakness/defense mechanism of any religious person or culture when they are insecure/new in their faith. Anyone who is at a fundamental level of understanding in their belief is going to see it as black and white, with-us or against-us situation. This is amusingly true of a belief in tolerance and diver
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This gets posted verbatim to just about every story. It's trash, the poster probably doesn't even look for replies.
They could at least vary it a bit, now not only is it stupid, it's stale.
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but you're going to have kids one day and this is how you're going to do it, so you know the risk is real
I'm sterile you insensitive clod.
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Can it be removed instantly without solvents and with no damage to the materials bonded together?
Well, there goes my Might Putty [youtube.com] reference...
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Can it be removed instantly without solvents and with no damage to the materials bonded together?
Yes, that's the whole point of this.
Think about a gecko, does it rip the paint off walls with each step? The bond is easily released by peeling but sticks strongly if you try to slide it, like a post-it note but stronger. Apparently it is self-cleaning too.
It doesn't bond the way glue or other adhesives do, the adhesion is from the addition of the van der Waals force from millions/billions of tiny "hairs". more info [berkeley.edu]
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hmm... that dÃes resemble spiderman. in the first movie, they used tiny hairs as an explanation for his wall-climbing as well..
i'm actually getting interested in this :)
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Peel-On, apply directly to the peel!
Or maybe they mean you have to apply it in a reverse peeling motion instead of simply slamming it straight down....
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So, "lay on" or "roll on"?
Re:Not to be a pedant, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't mean this as an insult; it's just that your post made me grin. Kind of like when someone underscores what they are expressing metaphorically by saying, "literally." Like: "I was so hungry I literally could have eaten a horse." I've actually taken to saying, myself, "[blah blah], literally! By which I mean figuratively."
And when anyone questions my most outlandish statements, I tell them, straight faced, "I always speak in hyperbole. Always. ALLLWAYS."
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Every time i see pedant im reminded of the IT crowd episode
Jen: "His name is Peter File"
Moss: "Whos a pedophile?"
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Or: I'm so verbose and well-heeled that I could literarily spew a file cabinet full of words.
(slash red-underscored "literarily", yet it's a Merriam-defined word.... go... figures, hehehehe)
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Kind of like when someone underscores what they are expressing metaphorically by saying, "literally." Like: "I was so hungry I literally could have eaten a horse."
I have literally eaten a horse [wikipedia.org] you insensitive clod!
It was mighty tasty too.
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I had horse when I was in France a few years ago. When friends asked me how it was, I'd say, "It was g-o-o-o-o-o-d!" (think like a whinny)
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Do I have to have eaten the WHOLE thing, or just the edible parts?
The Gekko Field Researcher (Score:2, Funny)
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Hi. I'm a gecko, not to be confused with Geiko, who can save you 15% or more on car insurance. This sick bastard has been chasing me all week telling me he wants to turn my feet into glue. I keep trying to tell him that the glue is made out of Geico feet, but he just won't believe me. Will you please STOP FOLLOWING ME!!?!
[He steps into a loop of rope, followed by the screen going black and showing a Geico logo as we hear the sound of a gecko going airborne.]
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Err.. Geico, not Geiko. *sigh*
Umm... (Score:1)
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It's so easy a caveman can do it.
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Gekko? (Score:1, Redundant)
Hmmm... (Score:2)
So its just like those 3M sticky hooks you can stick to your wall, hang some reasonably heavy stuff on them, then pull downwards on a tab attached to the sticky part and they come back off the wall no problem... But stronger.
Color me unimpressed. Can someone get me excited about new problems this address?
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Last time I pulled one of those off the wall it came off no problem. Along with the paint and wallboard behind it!
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Hmm, that's a drag, I've never had a problem with one, I love 'em.
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TFS says a 4x4 mm pad holds 1.5 kg.
Someone is wrong (probably TFS, since it implies failure on ther part of the editors).
How can 4.5x4.5 mm hold more than 160 times the eight of 2x2 mm when it's just 5 times the surface area?
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Read TFA. It's 4x4, not 2x2. I don't know where you get the other figure from. So silly.
there is no 2x2 ... lets get back to the math (Score:1)
We've mentioned the possibilities of synthetic gecko technology several times before, including as applied in this wall-climbing robot;
I say screw the robots, I want to be able to climb up walls and ceilings myself!
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A square inch will hold 241.9kg, or over 500 pounds!
Wow, I've been looking for a solution to sticking the really big steel workers to the underside of wide flange beams by their hardhats! Superglue only holds so much.
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Welding the hard hat directly to the beam works so much better.
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Welding the hard hat directly to the beam works so much better.
Actually, not. The hat tends to melt. And I'd rather not have to weld channels to the flange to cradle the lip of the helmet either. Bolting is right out, too: it needs to have minimal impact to the structural integrity of the beam.
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the way I heard it on the radio (Score:2)
was that you can apply it and remove it as many times as you like. Removing it doesn't damage the tape. It is more like a velcro than a glue.
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Prespective (Score:1, Informative)
How many of those hooks does it take to hang an M1 Abram [wikipedia.org]?
Tape Characteristics:
Area: 4mm^2
Weight It Holds: 1.5kg
Tape holds: 533.3 lbs/in^2 [google.com]
M1 Abram Tank Characteristics:
Weight: 135200 lbs
Amount of tape needed: 1.76 ft^2 [google.com]
Cost of new technology (Score:5, Insightful)
They mention the cost, but surely that will come down. Anything breakthrough like that is going to be expensive to create until the figure out a way to mass produce it.
I wonder, however, the type of strength you'd have to have to actually "do a Spiderman" up the building. Yes it will hold you to the building, but you'll still have to have the upper body strength to advance your way up without handholds to help if it's a flat surface.
Sci-Fi fun aside, there will no doubt be a lot of uses for this product. And a few years down the road we will have infomercial guru, Billy Mays [wikipedia.org] shouting at us to try new and improved "Gecko Glue" to hang pictures and fix broken mugs. :)
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The price will surely come down - and I expect that it will deflate much as computer and electronic technology has.
I am eager to see the data on this as it will surely spawn the creation of a Moore's-law type formula for nanotech.
Buy your nanotech stocks, some are less than $1 usd per share right now! - they won't stay that cheap forever.
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You wouldn't need to rely on upper body strength alone if you also have the stuff on your feet. That lets you use your leg muscles as well.
Even with the proportional strength of a spider, Mr. Parker usually uses his feet when wall-crawling.
Re:Cost of new technology (Score:5, Funny)
You wouldn't need to rely on upper body strength alone if you also have the stuff on your feet. That lets you use your leg muscles as well.
My question-- do the outer layers of skin on my fingers/toes have the adhesive properties to the inner-layers of skin or will I fall 30 stories leaving finger-skin behind? Also, how much building-dust and pollution accumulates to the adhesive, and how quickly?
I really need to know this before I try.
W
PS- are web shooters included?
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I doubt this is anything you'd want to put on your skin. I'm assuming it would go on gloves/shoes. My only question is, if it can hold so much weight, how can it peel off?
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Since the stuff is conductive, it might be possible to 'clean' it of particles by applying a charge to it - hopefully that would transfer charge to the dust/pollution particles on the ends of the hairs and make them repel off? can any physics types confirm if th is would work?
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PS- are web shooters included?
You only get one but you're not gonna like where you have to shoot it from...
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Have you ever climbed up a 80 ft ladder? It takes some serious strength to do that quickly - my arms and legs were shaking when I got to the top of the water tower. Great view though. Too bad we never did get the wifi contract. :(
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Last time I had to climb 500 ft to change a lightbulb on the college radio tower, it took about an hour, and it was EXACTLY like being on a stairmaster. One of the first tips I got on that job was never grab the next rung - always grab the vertical side of the ladder. Reason: the protective paint on the ladder could/would develop pinholes and rust would eat through the rung, but it would appear fine to a visual inspection. If I ran into that, it wouldn't matter if I DID have a grip that Superman couldn't br
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Yes, I took that into account, but you can't use the flat part of your feet, you'd have to put the adhesive on the tips of the toes (of the shoes) and even then--how easy would that be without footholds as well as hand holds? Face it, man is not made for climbing like a chimpanzee, much less a gecko! Our legs are too long and our feet don't bend the right way to do this easily--at least not on a flat surface.
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Bend to peel off.
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I expect you could get about as much surface area on your feet as you would get on a small hold on a climbing wall. You'd have a lot more area on you hands, because you could stick them flat to the wall.
Re:Cost of new technology (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder, however, the type of strength you'd have to have to actually "do a Spiderman" up the building. Yes it will hold you to the building, but you'll still have to have the upper body strength to advance your way up without handholds to help if it's a flat surface.
The other big thing to think about is what are you adhering to ? This might work if you were climbing up something like clean metal or marble, but most will be much lower quality. Many surfaces if you pull too hard on them will disintegrate and the top layer will detach, so you will just end up falling off the sky scraper with a thin layer of brick or paint on your hands.
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I wonder, however, the type of strength you'd have to have to actually "do a Spiderman" up the building. Yes it will hold you to the building, but you'll still have to have the upper body strength to advance your way up without handholds to help if it's a flat surface.
Isn't that what handholds are used for? Holding you to the surface you're climbing? If anything, climbing with this stuff should be less of a strain than with handholds - you don't have to wear your arms out gripping things, you are securely held in place without having to reach for holds in difficult positions and you can put some of the stuff on your feet and maybe knees to let you use the much stronger leg muscles to make your way up.
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I would think the problem would be unsticking yourself to move. If you've got roughly equal surface area on your hands and feet, and you need a bit extra for safety, each hand or foot has to hold a bit more than a quarter of your body weight. That's a decent pull you'd have to give each limb, for each move.
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Have you only got four limbs? Poor thing. :P
I guess I'm a sticky spot on the pavement. You're absolutely right.
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Have you tried some of the new nano tube glues? They are expensive and you had better need the entire bottle as it turns into a rock upon being opened no matter how hard you try to seal the tube. In other words it is not only how well a glue sticks but how easy it is to use. I recently tried another high tech glue which sort of bubbles and oozes out of a joint even when applied lightly. It makes a yellow stain wherever it touches. It is useless.
Article is Annoying as Hell (Score:1)
I don't really care how "super" the glue may be.
The cover of the book may not be strong enough such that after sticking the book to 4x4mm patch, the book just falls off. The book will be on the floor with a ~4x4mm scar. The cover just isn't strong enough to defy gravity on a mere 4x4mm of glue.
A "spiderman" scenario suffers from the same complications. Except we're talking scarred fingertips. Ewww!
Re:Article is Annoying as Hell (Score:4, Insightful)
So wear gloves and shoes that are tightly attached. You can hold yourself up normally by your fingers and toes, right? Problem solved.
Post is annoying as hell (Score:5, Funny)
There are probably a few more uses for it than using a small pad to blue a book to a wall and to be spiderman. Don't be so obtuse.
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It might if you point it spine-up rather than spine to the left side.
$1000 Post-It notes, eh? (Score:1)
Spiderman example warranted? (Score:2, Insightful)
Didn't read summary but.. (Score:5, Funny)
I am so glad they came up with a new gecko adhesive. I haven't had good results nailing my geckos down, they eat the tape, and the natural gecko adhesive just doesn't cut it.
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It's comments like this that make me unhappy that scores max out at +5
Why? (Score:2)
Velcro (Score:2)
I read TFA.
It's nano-velcro.
Shown on the Science Channel (Score:2, Informative)
Firefox: Geck Glue (Score:1)
Thank goodness... (Score:1)
Space Shuttle fix? (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds like a perfect solution for adhering the tiles to the outside of the space shuttle, provided it can withstand the heat. Considering the glue would be on the back of the insulating tiles, does that mean the temperatures would be tolerable enough for it to work?
2 cents
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To my knowledge, it's not adhering the tiles that's so difficult, it's the fact that the tiles are very fragile, and tend to break chunks off themselves (likely leaving the adhesive behind)
That's odd (Score:3, Funny)
Reading only the title - as is traditional around here - why would I want an adhesive which only adheres to geckos?
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