A new type of dry glue designed to mimic gecko feet is 10 times
stickier than the gravity-defying lizards, and three times
stickier than other gecko-inspired glues, U.S. researchers said
on Thursday. "It's the stickiest dry glue yet," said Liming Dai
of the University of Dayton, who reported on the glue in the
journal Science. A 1-inch (2.5-cm) square of the adhesive can
support the weight of a 220-pound (100-kg) man climbing up a
vertical surface, but it can be easily lifted and reapplied, an
ideal material for, say, a Spider-Man suit. "That is not real.
What we do is real," said Zhong Lin Wang of Georgia Institute of
Technology in Atlanta, referring to the comic book superhero's
wall-climbing prowess. Aside from helping people walk up walls,
the glue could be used in electrical components without the need
for soldering, Wang and Dai said in a telephone interview. And
because it is dry, it could be used at very low temperatures as
in space, where more conventional glues lose their grip. Like
other gecko-insp