Nerdy Science Blog

Paul Steen, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, and Michael Vogal, a formal postdoctoral associate, developed a palm-size device that possibly allowed human to walk on walls by using water surface tension as an adhesive bond.  The device was developed at Cornell University and the research was published in Feb 1’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The invention was inspired by beetle native to Florida which can stick itself to a leaf 100 times more than its own weight.  Scientists applied the rapid adhesion mechanism they found to develop a device that can be used on shoes, gloves, or other possible tools you can think of to stick and unstick heavy things to walls.  The device is made of holes in orders of microns on flat plate with a liquid reservoir at bottom and porous layer at the middle.  With the help of 9-volt battery, water will be pumped to produce droplets to the top layer of the device and the droplets’ surface tension will grip another surface.

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