Spider-Man Super Powers for the Rest of Us
Some good news if you've always been jealous of Peter Parker's ability to scale walls in a leotard. Nicola Pugno of Italy's Polytechnic University of Turin is spending precious research dollars to help man stick to walls -- though, sans-leotard.
The secret is carbon nanotubes, structures of carbon that are rolled into cylinders just one nanometer thick. These structures are so impossibly small, an Ebola virus is roughly 80x thicker.
Pugno's inspiration didn't come from your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but rather from geckos. That cute little guy in the Geico ads has the ability to stick to just about any surface you put him on, even managing to dangle from ceilings by one toe. This adhesive power is due to several arrays of microscopic hairs on a gecko's feet called setae, which then branch out into even smaller spatulas. These hairs are so small that they interact on a molecular level with whatever surface they touch.
Scientists have previously tried to mimic these forces with carbon nanotubes, but have not been able to develop anything strong enough to support the weight of a human being. Pugno has taken the science a step further by splitting the tubes like the hairs on a gecko's feet. This split-hierarchical structure increases the adhesive qualities of the carbon tubes so dramatically that Pugno claims they could be used to make gloves and boots that would support the weight of a human. Such apparel could have applications in high-rise construction or even in space, where it would keep astronauts secured to a ship or space station.
Hey, we're for anything that would make cleaning the gutters a lot more fun.
From Discovery News
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