That lizard that has become famous for selling car insurance -- the gecko -- in real life can climb across glass windows and across the ceiling.
Even upside down, geckos cling readily to pretty much anything you throw at them -- or rather, that they are thrown at.
The science of that ability has intrigued researchers at the University of Akron for several years because it suggests potential applications in such areas as construction materials and medicine.
They're so intrigued, they're asking tougher questions of 50 little lizards kept in two labs at the Auburn Science Center in Akron, Ohio.
"OK, buddy, how about this one: Can you walk on Teflon?"
The answer: not very well. The popular DuPont nonstick product not only resists cheese omelets, but it also presented a significant challenge to the hairy toes of the gecko.
Yes, hair. That's the secret. Not glue or liquids or surface tension. Geckos' toes have hairs much like bristles -- with thousands of them in one square millimeter, each tipped with something called a spatula, so tiny that it is not much larger than the wavelength of visible light.
And what researchers have found is that the questions are endless.
Undergraduate student Nicholas Wucinich, for example, a biology major who graduated May 10, asked: What if the Teflon is under water?
"I didn't have an answer," said Alyssa Stark, 31, a doctoral candidate in the university's integrated bioscience program. "I also didn't think the results would be all that interesting. If they don't stick in air why should they stick in water?"
And so experiments were run, and Stark and her colleagues were in for a surprise.
"They stuck," she said.
"There is an important moral to this story," Stark said. "Always listen to your students."
used by cruise
Peter H. Niewiarowski, professor of biology and integrated bioscience and one of the principal investigators at the University of Akron's Biomimicry Research and Innovation Center, likes to talk about the Tom Cruise character in the film Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," who with gecko-like gloves was able to climb the shiny surface of a skyscraper.
In the movie, Cruise and his sticky gloves helped save the world.
"Having the ability to climb like a gecko immediately captures the imagination of kids and adults alike," Niewiarowski said. "Why is that scene so engaging? I suppose it is the degrees to which it seems so within our grasp. ... Bugs and geckos can do it. How is it we can't with all our engineering and technology prowess?"
While the movie trivializes the massive obstacles between our world and a world in which gecko gloves are readily available, Niewiarowski said it helps translate to the public how important the practical uses of a gecko sticking-mechanism could be.
There are revolutionary implications, he said. A material that has the sticking-power of a gecko's feet could lead to new construction materials or bandages or ways of closing wounds after surgery.
"We use fasteners that are hard to acquire or involve toxic by-products that are hard to recycle," he said. "What if you can fasten the corners of walls by using a gecko-inspired fastener? Then you could break down the walls and move them around and create a different living space."
One Akron company already has capitalized on the research. ADAP Nanotech LLC received a $250,000 investment from the nonprofit JumpStart Inc. in March 2012 to pilot the production of an adhesive that dissipates heat and can be applied inside electronics, which often require expensive cooling processes.
Niewiarowski said that as researchers make discoveries about the gecko, visions of possible applications expand.
"I think we really still don't understand how geckos deal with wet environments and remain sticky," he said. "We don't know if they avoid wet surfaces or avoid being active when surfaces are wet or if they have some other tricks," he said. Working with geckos "that spend all their time in the laboratory" may in fact be limiting. (By the way, it requires the nurturing of thousands of cockroaches to keep the Akron clan of geckos fed.)
sticky stuff
Polymer science professor Ali Dhinojwala, one of the lead researchers studying Akron's geckos, said that as a scientist who studies adhesion, one of the most significant challenges is that synthetic sticky things don't easily release, as does a gecko foot pad. For example, he said, duct tape stuck to itself is nearly impossible to pull apart.
He also is fascinated with the fact that the gecko foot pads are self-cleaning, which means they can walk on a dirty surface.
Using carbon nanotubes, or molecular cylindrical tubes, researchers already have developed a "gecko tape" that is more sticky than the gecko's feet.
ActiveStyle on 05/19/2014