Friday, May 1, 2015

How Do Geckos Defy Gravity?

Contributed by Natalie Barnouw


Image by Jasper Hamill

7 comments:

Owen said...

I think that the fact that the biology of a gecko can allow it to climb walls and sometimes walk on the ceiling is impressive. In the end, the video mentioned that someone mimicked the biology of a gecko's foot to climb a 25- story building. This reminds me of our Bio-Mimicry Unit because it's an example of how something that occurs in nature can be can be used for inspiration and be imitated.

Siji said...

This video was really interesting, especially the part about electronegativity. When electronegativity (the atom's "desire" for electrons) bonds atoms together, this will bond other molecules together, creating Van Der Waals forces. I think it is fascinating how the gecko's spatulae on their feet stick on a surface, and then expand in surface area to maximize the spatulae's effect, in order for the gecko to hang upside down. Near the end, the video mentioned how we have attempted to create artificial methods of the spatualae's effect, but we can only climb with them up to 25 feet. This doesn't make sense to me, because the only reason I could see this occurring is because the electronegativity stops, thus breaking the Van Der Waals forces, and taking away the spatualae's effect. But this doesn't seem right because as the electronegativity changes, the atoms will follow.

Jason G. said...

This is a really cool idea. I never knew that the Spatulae were strong enough to hold a gecko on one toe. As Owen said, this idea ties in with our Bio-Mimicry Unit. The Satae and Spatulae can be mimicked so that a full grown man can climb 25 feet up a glass wall. This is also very beneficial to the environment. Geckos and other animals can solve problems that people have been trying to find answers for for years. Bio-Mimicry is very helpful to find solutions for birds and crops, and defying gravity. Part of this complex answer is the Van Der Waals forces. The gecko uses the fact that positive and negative charges attract, to its advantage.

Jason G. said...

Also, if we were to apply this concept other things. For example earthquakes, houses would be much safer with this concept. In the process of building a completely new house, you could apply a thin lair of concrete under the house, then apply the concept to every molecule on the floor of the house so that the house would be stuck to the concrete by positive and negative charges. When there is an earthquake and the angle changes, the house gets released from the ground so that the earth shakes and that the house does not shake. When the earthquake is over, then the house would stick back onto the surface again. This way, houses would be much safer to live in, and also any other structure. With this idea, things that happened in Nepal wouldn't happen.

Derek said...

I think that this video was very interesting. I think that it is very cool how geckos gan use spatulae to combine negative and positive electrons like magnets to hang onto the ceiling. I think that it is really cool that geckos have enough on one of their toe to support all of their weight on a toe. I agree with Owen and Jason on that this would be cool to do a Bio-Mimicry unit on. I do not understand why we can only go 25 feet up. I thought that if we put enough spatulae on the glove than we should be able to go as high as we wanted. Over all this video was really cool and I would like to see another video like this soon.

Olivia said...

Wow! This video was fascinating. It is amazing what nature creates. It's purpose is executed and the details all work for one force. I knew that Gecko's could walk upside down, but I had no idea that it was because of electrical charges. I agree with Owen and how it does relate to our bio mimicry project. I thought that this video was detailed and easy to follow and it demonstrated a visual aid on how everything works. I had no idea that van der Waal and spatulaes were strong enough to hold all the weight of the gecko by just one toe. I was also amazed that it depends on the angle. I would have liked it if the article explained the angles because it said that if the gecko moves to a certain angle it can fall.

Siji said...

Maybe we can only use it up to 25 feet because the device wears out, not because of the weakening of Van Der Waals forces, but because of the weakening of the angle which is needed for Van Der Waals forces.