The mystery of what makes geckos stick to just about anything - a question that has puzzled scientific minds since Aristotle - has finally been solved, according to a new study.The answer involves the geometry, not the biochemistry , of the lizard's feet, meaning scientists may be able to duplicate the same geometric principles to create things such as robots that can walk on any surface in any direction, the researchers say. another possibility is something as simple as Band-Aids that hold tight but don't stick when they're peeled off.
"I just saw the movie 'Spiderman' and I realized that some day we'll be able to do even better than he does sticking to things," said Kellar Autumn, a Lewis & Clark College biologist in Portland and lead author of the study published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Researchers found that the tips of the hairs on the bottom of gecko feet are tiny enough to take advantage of a weal attraction between individual molecules called van der Waals forces.
Geckos have millions of microscopic hairs on the bottoms of their feet that are narrower than human hairs. and each splits off into 1,000 tips that are so small they cannot be seen with a conventional microscope.
The shape of the hair tips also is critical, allowing the small lizard to scamper up walls and across ceilings by sticking its toes to nearly any smooth surface in less than one eight-thousandth of a second and unsticking them in half that time.
"What we discovered was the angle the little shaft of the hair makes with the surface is the critical variable," Autumn said.
"The gecko has this really unique way of taking its feet off the wall- it peels its toes like tape,"