Ok. The moment you've all been waiting for. I have the gecko article!! I understand that the vast majority will probably not find this article nearly as entertaining as I did, but, well, it's my blog, so deal. :) Here it is:

Geckos' hairy feet inspire search for a super adhesive
by Kenneth Aaron, Albany Times Union

TROY, N.Y. - This may be the most gripping story you'll read this week.

It's about geckos, how their feet stick to just about everything, and how Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is trying to make a gecko foot of its own.

Or, at least, the microscopic structures that make those feet so tenacious.

A gecko's feet are covered with millions of tiny hairs known as setae, and each one of those is split even further at the tip, into surfaces called spatulas. When those come into contact with almost anything, a molecular attraction known as van der Waal's forces is instantly formed.

The strength of that attraction isn't so great on its own. But when the effect is multiplied over millions of hairs, it's pretty strong.

Strong enough that 1 million of them could hold up a 45-pound child, according to Kellar Autumn, a biologist at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore.

The whole concept of aping Mother Nature attracted Pulickel Ajayan, an RPI engineering professor. He is an expert on carbon nanotubes, which are remarkably strong, tiny structures that may find a home in a number of products, such as microelectronics or medical devices or even tennis rackets.

"I have been interested in this idea of creating hairy surfaces on a nanoscale," said Ajayan.

When Ajayan and a colleague from the University of Akron, Ali Dhinojwala, teamed up to form a hair-like array of carbon nanotubes, they discovered that they could not only get grip, but get grip 200 times more than a gecko would get with its own setae.

Ajayan won't have a pair of wall-climbing gloves of his own any time soon. The tubes are formed using techniques similar to those used in making microchips, and so far, the researchers haven't been able to make enough of the nanotubes to demonstrate the concept outside of a laboratory environment.

If they're successful, Ajayan and Dhinojwala envision using the reusable adhesive for applications such as aerospace and holding electronic components in assemblies. In the vacuum of outer space, for example, suction doesn't work, but the setae would.

Why is this so enteraining to me? This is someone's life work, and I'm laughing at it. Maybe I just like the fact that they get to use the words "spatulas" and "nanotubes" in everyday conversation. Or maybe I'm jealous of the fact that someone actually had the opportunity to say, "I have been interested in this idea of creating hairy surfaces on a nanoscale," and was taken entirely seriously. Either way, it brightened my day. Hopefully it brightened yours, too.