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Springs
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 636
| Posted 9/1/2002 6:50 PM (GMT -6) |   | Hey Mags you out there?
According to an article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press today some scientists say they have finally figured out how gecko's can hang upside down from a piece of glass. Tiny hairs on the lizard's feet make use of the obscure Van deer Waals force.
"An excerpt by Michael Stroh: "The secret to the gecko's grip, it turns out, hinges on one of the animal world's worst cases of split ends, and a quirky property of quantum physics known as the van der Waals force."
"Geckos have millions of microscopic hairs sprouting from the bottom of their feet. The hairs, call setae ("see-tee"), split into as many as 1,000 tinier hairlets, each capped with a trinagular pad whose shape has been likened to a hamburger flipper. These tips, call spatulae, are about the size of a small bacterium. "
"The van der Waals force occurs when atoms come close to one another and - for a fleeting instant - display a weak electrical attraction."
Quantum mechanics and lizards! What's next?
Spiderman boots!!! woo whoo
-S
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barneebus
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2002
Total Posts : 14
| Posted 9/2/2002 11:02 AM (GMT -6) | | If this is true, you should be able to set the gecko on TOP of a piece of glass that has been charged (say, rub it with silk or wool) and watch the gecko levitate!
Maybe we could run trains, mag-lev style, by attaching geckos to the wheels and charging the tracks.
Just a thought.
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