Who’s that wall-crawler?!
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007SCI-FI to SCI-FACT: A Working “Spider Man” Suit - Slice of Scifi
A “Spider-man” suit that enables its wearer to scale vertical walls like the comic and movie superhero could one day be a reality, according to a study. Natural technology used by spiders and geckos could help a human climb the side of a building or hang upside down from a roof, the analysis suggests. The findings are published in the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter.
Both spiders and geckos possess tiny “hairs” that allow them to stick to surfaces. Some studies suggest that geckos can hold hundreds of times their own body weight. In 2002, US research suggested this adhesion in geckos was due to very weak intermolecular forces. These are produced by billions of hair-like structures of different sizes that are arranged in a hierarchical structure on each gecko foot.
That is too cool. I gotta have one. Click the link above for more details.
If I had something like this I could avoid buying that extension ladder I need!
‘Cause I’m sure this suit would cost less than an extension ladder…
Now we just need someone to start working on artificial “webs” and a web-shooter.
Technorati Tags: Spider-man, scientific discoveries, fiction-to-real
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