August 30, 2005
Diamonds, geckos, and nanotechnology
Wonders abound. In Germany, they've come up with a new form of carbon ("aggregated diamond nanorods") that is harder than diamond. And an American team has created synthetic gecko-foot hairs that not only mimic but outperform their models 200 times over. Move over, Spiderman!
Posted by David on August 30, 2005 8:56 PM
Articles talk about scientific and commercial applications. I, on the other hand, wonder how much of this will be scooped up by the military. Guess I've been reading too many science fiction novels.
Posted by: Sarah on August 31, 2005 2:42 PM
American scientists have only allegedly solved the Gecko-sticking problem. By allegedly I mean that it has been solved in 1968 already. The Americans have only excavated it (accompanied by modern measurent techniques).
Unfortunately many science journalists were tempted by the self-advertisement campaign of the Americans and thus have contributed to the falsification of scientific reality. Because American sources only partly cite the first work on this topic - here the quotation:
Uwe Hiller (1986): Untersuchungen zum Feinbau und zur Funktion der Haftborsten von Reptilien. Z. Morph. Tiere 62, 307 - 362.
Posted by: Jean on January 19, 2006 4:57 AM
gmail.com