Gecko tape, adhesive of the future!

I can’t wait till one of these hits the market!

It’s a nice example of biomimetics (ie imitating biology) done by a group of researchers at RPI and U of Akron. What you have on gecko feet are things called setae and spatulas – it’s like little hairs, but at the end of each little hair is yet another finer array of hairs. All of these add up to produce a large Van der Waals adhesion force between the gecko feet and the surface they stick to.

Now, fabricating such hierachical structures is not quite a straightforward task if you use conventional, top-down microfabrication techniques. What the researchers here have done instead, is to use something that’s already dense and hairlike – namely, dense arrays of very fine, vertically grown carbon nanotubes. By sculpting these into setae-like structures, they obtain a flexible sticky tape with a shear stress of 36N/cm² – ie, a 1×1 cm area of the tape can support a 3.6 kg load.

Can that support the weight of a human? Let’s say the area of a human hand is about 6 cm x 10 cm (a rather conservative estimate). Covering this whole area with gecko tape would mean it’ll be able to sustain a load of around 200 kg. So with just one gecko-tape covered hand, you could, in principle, stick to a wall!

Now, whether your arm muscles are up to the task, that’s something else…

So, what did you learn in class today?

Looking over at the recent science syllabuses lately (found somewhere here or here, for example), it looks like many things are heading towards the latest, trendiest buzzwords in the business. And you wonder what’s getting left out in the process.

Which leads to the following scenario:

Scene: Lab full of electronics characterisation equipment, researcher busy at work, attachment student close at hand to help.

Researcher: Whoops, that supply doesn’t have a BNC, I’m going to need something else. To student: Find me a pair of bananas.

Student: Okay boss.

Half an hour passes…

Student: 30 cents each at the canteen. Hands researcher two fresh bananas.

Now imagine if the researcher had asked for crocodiles instead…

What they never tell you in the moving guides to Singapore

Vermin. Those nasty creepy crawlies. Especially the Big Three: mosquitoes, cockroaches and ants. Plaguing you 24/7. Seriously, one of the nicest things about cold winters is the lack of any major form of insectoid infestation. Down here in the tropics, these things just swarm everywhere.

Mosquitoes are by far the worst of the lot. These ain’t the tame, slowly moving critters inhabiting the Florida swamps. The ones in Singapore are the insectoid equivalent of Apache gunships – swift and sneaky, and sometimes with a deadly arsenal of dengue or malaria. Nothing in the world can compare to that feeling of dread when you hear that high-pitched buzzing sound right by your ear as you lie in bed.

There’s this tennis-racket like gadget comprising of two electrified grids, running off a couple of D cells – you wave this around until the buzzing critter gets caught between the grids, whereupon it gets fried to a crisp. In theory anyway – the reality is that you can hardly see the critter you’re swatting, and half the time you run the risk of frying your own hair, or that of someone else in the household, whenever you wave that thing around. And the packaging tells you to keep this away from kids. I can just imagine the chaos if Junior gets his hands on such a “toy”.

There’s also an assortment of patches, sprays and incense-stick-like things that supposedly keep those mosquitoes away. Except that the patches and the sprays are pricey for the amount you get, and the smell of incense might get overpowering after while. The best solution I’ve seen so far is this anti-mozzie shower gel (around $12 at Mustapha’s) – the bottle claims you use it like any normal shower gel and it keeps the buzzing critters away, but I’ve found it works just as well if you use it as a cream to smear on before going out on your morning jog, or evening gardening, or whatever.

Now, if only there was something comparable to keep the other two nasty things – roaches and ants – out of the way!

What am I?

In response to takchek’s comment, I figured I’ll write a short post about it.

Looking over my job description, and my workplace’s “Mission, Vision, Core Competencies and other buzzwords” page, materials science appears nowhere in it. Neither do any of the traditional disciplines like physics, chemistry, etc (which I am “officially” trained in). And yet, what I do now not just involves materials science, but electrical engineering, physics and chemistry as well.
We’re getting to the point where researchers can’t really conveniently classify themselves simply as “chemist”, “materials scientist” or “physicist” anymore. To paraphrase Heinlein:

“A researcher should be able to change pump oil, write a grant, mix chemicals, analyze data, leak check a system, clean test tubes, work in a team, be independent, learn a new field quickly, operate milion-dollar machines, fix computers, troubleshoot equipment, build electronics circuits, dispose hazardous materials safely and teach students.”

Specialisation, at least in this country, would mean a very short and boring career indeed.

I need a nipple

Or two. Or three. There’s so many fun things you can do with them – sticking them into things, using them to suck things out, and more.

Except, how do you place orders for nipples when your network guys are still using obsolete methods to filter email?

And how would you go about organising a badminton game where everyone needs to bring their own rackets and shuttlecocks?

Seriously, it’s the 21st century; you’d think all network administrators know about smarter filters by now.  Unless, of course, the purpose of this filtering is to avoid offending the prudish types.  Oh, the idiocy.