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From: Eirikur Hallgrimsson <eh@mad.scientist.com>
Organization: Electric Brain
To: FoRK <FoRK@xent.com>
Subject: Gecko adhesion finally sussed.
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(Via Robot Wisdom)   Maybe you UC folk know these people?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-08/lcc-sph082202.php

Working at Lewis & Clark College, the University of California at Berkeley, 
the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Stanford University, 
the interdisciplinary team:

    * confirmed speculation that the gecko's amazing climbing ability 
depends on weak molecular attractive forces called van der Waals forces,

    * rejected a competing model based on the adhesion chemistry of water 
molecules, and

* discovered that the gecko's adhesive depends on geometry, not surface 
chemistry. In other words, the size and shape of the tips of gecko foot 
hairs--not what they are made of--determine the gecko's stickiness.

To verify its experimental and theoretical results, the gecko group then 
used its new data to fabricate prototype synthetic foot-hair tips from two 
different materials.

"Both artificial setal tips stuck as predicted," notes Autumn, assistant 
professor of biology at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore. "Our 
initial prototypes open the door to manufacturing the first biologically 
inspired dry, adhesive microstructures, which can have widespread 
applications." 

