beastmaster

Reusable tape developed from studying geckos has been getting some press lately:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/news-item21.htm

This tape works underwater and in space, can be cleaned and reused forever, and a dime-sized patch of it can support the weight of a baby!

Only a matter of time before I am climbing walls in my Spiderman suit.

Secular Pinoy

The question is, will The Office of Homeland Security be endorsing that in place of duct tape?

thebeave

Myself and many of my friends are rock climbers and were discussing the impact of this Gecko tape on the future of the sport. It's going to be a major debate in the climbing world very shortly, once this stuff is cheaply mass produced. You're going to see obese, out-of-shape people climbing things considered impossible with today's climbing shoe rubber. The fallout is going to be incredible...

beastmaster

Fascinating. Would this tape make rock climbing easier or simply a whole lot safer? Even with the tape, wouldn't the physicial exertion of holding and pulling yourself up the rock surface still be just as difficult? I suppose the intellectual challenge of finding handholds would be gone, but I am not sure that the obese and out-of-shape are deterred from climibing due to the mental aspects of the sport.

Also, I wonder how well the tape would grip on a sandy or dirty surface ....

Or on ice for that matter.

echidna

Consider another impact when they manage to commercially reproduce spider thread. You could keep a 100 m dynamic line in your pocket (maybe I exaggerate slightly, but that development is gonna change all of our lives).

thebeave

Ideally, it would make it easier and safer, but I think we'll just have to wait and see how you are expected to apply it to and remove it from a surface. If I understood the article correctly, there is a trick to it or else it doesn't work. If you have to use every ounce of muscle to dislodge your "gecko foot" from the rock, then maybe it won't be such a great climbing enhancement! Sandy or dirty rock could be problematic, but you can always blow off the grit. Yeah.. you'd still have the mental thing to deal with, but once you got confident with the holding power of gecko feet (and hands?) you'd overcome that to some degree.

One thing that would be really neat is that even if it doesn't work well for shoes or gloves, it may be useful to provide a piece of protection or an anchor at a smooth, blank section of rock. Right now, if you encounter that situation while climbing you have to drill holes in the rock (often by hand!) and then screw in an expansion bolt with hanger... and that's not fun! 'Course you lose some of the adventure in the sport too...

thebeave

Is this actually in the works now? I'd love to read more about that.

Mother Nature is such a cool designer, isn't she? Think of all the neat things we learn about aerodynamics and hydrodynamics by watching birds fly and fish swim, not to mention all the cool material science. Remember, it was nature that invented velcro, not us!

echidna

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?art...A8809EC588EEDF

I think there's quite a bit of research around, this was just the first I found.