I recently discovered
something interesting about the common
gecko. That is, I guess we've finally
discovered how
geckoes stick to
walls.
In case you didn't
know, the common
gecko can walk
up walls and
across ceilings, even if they're
made of glass (the
walls, not the geckoes). In fact,
science hasn't yet been able to
create a surface that a gecko can't
stick to; they can even
stick to
molecularly smooth surfaces.
I, like
most people I think, always figured they had
suction cups for feet or that they
excreted some sort of
goo, but apparently
neither is true. Turns out their
feet are incredibly
smooth, being covered by several layers of
increasingly fine hairs. Their
ultra-smooth feet mean that, when they
touch something, they're able to put more of the
molecules in their
feet actually ON the
surface than is strictly normal. And molecules, as every
ameteur physicist knows, generate a
charge when they touch, similar to a
magnetic field, that sticks them together.
Why don't we
stick to things we touch, you might ask? Because apparently, the
human fingertip looks like a
mountain range when viewed at a
molecular level. So we only actually "touch" things with the
tips of those mountains--not enough to generate a significant charge.
But
think about it...what if we were to
develop very smooth shoes? You'd think it was
possible, if the
scientists have already made a
molecularly smooth surface to try to make a
gecko fall on its head. (That's pretty funny; if you think about it, the "molecularly smooth" surfaces must have been even
easier for the gecko to stick to.)
Anyway. It's a
little tricky outside of
theory, I
imagine, but I say let's go for it! It's time for the
human race to get
vertical!