A Gecko Could Hold 2 People. It Lets Go in 15 Milliseconds

A Gecko Could Hold 2 People. It Lets Go in 15 Milliseconds A gecko's feet could, on paper, hold two grown adults. The animal lets go in fifteen milliseconds, with a force too small for instruments to read — and we've known exactly how since 2000. Twenty-five years later, nobody has built a synthetic pad that grips, holds, self-cleans and releases on command, all at once, the way a gecko's foot does. Chapters: 0:00 Two people, fifteen milliseconds 0:36 Not glue, not suction 2:05 Stronger than anyone predicted 3:12 Letting go by geometry 4:32 It cleans itself 5:21 What we copied, from wall to orbit 7:21 The half nobody has built 9:21 What I think 10:03 The part we copy worst Sources: https://www.nature.com/articles/35015073 — Autumn et al., Nature 2000 — the original discovery paper: single-seta force, 15 ms detachment, 30° critical angle http://biomimetic.pbworks.com/f/Mecha... — Autumn & Peattie, Integrative and Comparative Biology 2002 — primary source for the core mechanism numbers https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/a... — Autumn et al., Journal of Experimental Biology 2006 — the frictional-adhesion model, 25.5° critical angle https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas... — Hansen & Autumn, PNAS 2005 — the self-cleaning mechanism https://www.eurekalert.org/news-relea... — UMass Amherst press release, 2012 — Geckskin: about 16 square inches holding 700 pounds https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases... — Stanford/Cutkosky lab coverage — Stickybot's directional adhesive https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/gecko-g... — NASA JPL, 2014 — the gripper's microgravity flight test https://news.stanford.edu/stories/202... — Stanford News, 2021 — the gripper tested aboard the ISS https://journals.biologists.com/jeb/a... — Niewiarowski, Stark & Dhinojwala, Journal of Experimental Biology 2016 — review: no synthetic mimic meets all the criteria yet https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... — Parness et al., Journal of the Royal Society Interface 2009 — wedge adhesive, 30,000 cycles https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7xq3... — Gillies, UC Berkeley dissertation — the gaps still open in synthetic gecko adhesives Footage: mostly real gecko and lizard footage/photos from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY and CC0/Public domain) and Pexels. Wikimedia Commons CC BY credits: Michal Maňas, Holger Krisp, Mongeau et al. (PLoS ONE 2012), Steve Jurvetson, Basile Morin, Stark et al. (PLoS ONE), kuhnmi, Thomas Quine, John Haslam, Katja Schulz, Theo Summer, Tony Wills. Full list with links in the pinned comment. Part of the series: Nobody Could Improve It