Thanks so much to Derek and team for visiting our lab! This was a great video on our gecko-inspired adhesives, and the best explanation yet of Van der Waals forces.
Great work you're doing. Nature is so inspiring and we have so much to learn. Question: did you do tests, how your product works/doesn't work on anti-stick (Lotus inspired) materials? Keep up the good work :)
Would it be possible to cover a pipe with the material so that it could be used instead of tire profile. I think it would create way more friction/traction than any slick tire would in good conditions. The pipe would just have to be long enough to have enough contact points… please try and tell me how it went, would be super cool
@White Rabbit when we are asleep we are still conscious. Many people are ignorant on the aspect of what consciousness really is but in the reality we are always awake. It really shows that when we are awake we still don’t know anything given our ego of perception.
I assume it's not currently available as a commercial product, but I might have a non-robotics use for it.. is there a way to get some to experiment? This is just amazing.
One of the coolest parts of science is revisiting a topic a few years later and realizing they found the answer they were looking for and from that, 6 new questions arose lol.
I guess you're going to make some soon? make sure the wax is almost perfectly flat before cutting the grooves... which should definitely be done by a machine 🤔 if you're able to get those ridges longer, it should be able to stick to rougher surfaces, since they can comply a lot better.
I remember watching a seminar on this topic during my UCSB freshman chemical engineering orientation tour in 2009. Crazy to see the early research I learned about coming to fruition 14 years later.
@@ithecastic I never actually said anything about religion itself, just that humans will eventually be able to create things on the level of nature, and you go to insult me on a whim, but I'm the simple minded one?
This tech has been around for some time, perhaps not as matured as it is now. I remember a buzz during the time one of the MI movies came out where Tom Cruise uses an advanced(albeit fictional) version of this to climb the Burj Khalifa.
I had a school project about biophysics and me and my group chose to talk about the geckos' adhesion, the van der waals forces are only one part of the very complex mechanism these animals use to climb! It's crazy how seemingly simple things in nature can be so complex and how we can learn from these things to build cool stuff. Great video :)
I remember in one of my nanotechnology courses at university around 2012 one of the physics lecturers told us about people investigating this sort of technology. Amazing to see it in action.
Kinda shows how University can have a place, but it ends up being a fraction of our lives in many cases. Uni didn't really say we'd move on and never need them, for reasons.
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This exact effect was the reason I studied materials science in my masters. It's just incredible how far we have come, that we are able to use such effects on materials that *.*
@@Josh_728 I'd imagine so if the vinyl sheets mentioned use this force, but I have noticed some that are noticeably sticky one one side so perhaps some indeed use a thin adhesive in some fashion
@@enorazza Right? I'm so curious how much better is the gecko than the artificial version, considering we seem to be able to fill the same surface area. Is it something like 80% as good, 95% as good? What if it were like half as good as the gecko? Crazy to think of the possibilities were that the case and we just need to iterate on the processes
@@spkane86 as they say in the video, what they can do is a very raw bad approx of what a gecko can. I would say they do not more than a mere 5-10% (i am being optimistic) and so, the possibilities are HUGE. We need to learn how to build something purely from a DNA.. like a cell does. Crispr is great to modify DNA, but to have a sheet of "gecko foot" made from the Gecko DNA (and then even improving it!) is pure science fiction nowadays. Having this capability will open the "God door" with unimaginable possibilities. We are so so far from that (50 years?)
I really thought those little ridges would be going the other direction, and gripping into whatever they were holding! But this is even more interesting. Looking forward to where this tech could lead in a few years/decades!
I _LOVE_ that you've published this. My nine year old has started a new theme at school this month, called biomimicry... I'm going to show this video to her; she'll love it.
My grandfather has a PhD in zoology and biology. I'll never forget the day when he showed me a scientific journal entry with a picture of this and how fascinating they were to him. He is an ichthyologist, so it wasn't his area of expertise; however, there were always some facts he could add to a situation or story, and how he described that truly humbled me at the time and still does. I credit my grandfather for my curiosity and thank creators like you for making me extremely proud of him, highlighting fascinating things in our universe, and invigorating those who are hungry for more knowledge. Thank you.
I hope to be a marine biologist and have been going to the aquarium lately and seeing their feet and have been fascinated as well as your grandfather, the detail is beautiful
I used to have a Crested Gecko - I loved watching him climb. They curl their toes upward to release their grip, and lay them flat to support their weight. It was fascinating to watch.
I hope one day this technology is adapted as plasters/medical tape. My newborn requires an NG tube for feeding and we have to tape it to his cheek, but he is allergic to adhesive and we are now in a battle over managing his poor skin degrading. It makes me happy to think how future families in similar situations could benefit from this concept.
Wow i remember when i was younger, my family didn't have cable so i was stuck watching local TV. One of my favorite shows was on PBS kids called Wild Kratts. These 2 guys taught you all about animals but one of my favorites was the Gecko. The guys in this show had Gecko-inspired suits which i always wanted to be real. This is really making my childhood dreams come true
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Years on after leaving school and I am continuously impressed by the quality of the content you provide for free that far exceeds most institutions. It’s just amazing how simply you explain concepts in a quarter of an hour.
When I was in School, about 15 years ago, we had this book "Geko's Foot" in our library, it was full of how amazing and fascinating the Geko's foot was! The ideas discussed in the book are now a reality! Science does make progress!
@@earthlingsixbillionsomethi2486 Things have always taken quite a while. We just didn't hear about the research until it was getting close to market. We might be more advanced than in decades past, but we're also doing more complicated things. It took NASA 20 years to get JWST done. But they had to invent half a dozen new technologies and advance them enough to be usable in space. It took 11 years to make the Blu-ray. Even though it's just a DVD with a different color laser and new programming. It was 80 years after the invention of the fridge before you could buy one in a store.
@@lordgarion514 I mean it is easier to sit your ass at home and demand progress when you are not the one at work. We tend to see scientific and technological advancement as something that is bound to happen and that we are 100% entitled to. Although it's like it's almost impossible to slow its pace down now 'cause many hands are on deck, these things have always been done by people like ourselves and they actually take time. It's just that successful ones are easy to spot than thousand of the unknown, failed procedures leading to successful ones.
this is absolutely amazing! a professor of inorganic chemistry i had in college used geckos to explain van de waals forces. He went on saying that geckos used the induced dipoles to attach themselves to walls, but weak as those forces are, they were not enough to make a new substance, or else we would end up with some "wall geckoate" (free translation) everytime a gecko climbs something
Hello Derek, I have an idea for a video. In chemistry, I learned that in redox reactions, electrons transfer, but it was never quite explained how or why exactly they do it. I would love a video about this process, which I found out is explained using quantum mechanics. That way, I might finally understand how the electrochemical potential table forms and why different organisms are an-/aerobic on a deeper level. If you (not Derek) read this and also wonder how this works, I would appreciate if you could give this comment a push so that Derek sees it. Thanks, keep up the good work, and greetings from Switzerland. Alejandro
I remember people telling me gecko tape would NEVER be possible, even the guy inventing this tape says so, but he still persisted and they developed something that comes pretty close to it. This is amazing! Another dream come true
@@fvictor77 My high school biology teacher. She pointed out, like the guy in the video, that their suction ability cannot be recreated in a lab. Only something that mimics it.
Well that’s a kinda dumb thing to say especially as a science teacher they were also saying we would never go to the moon, fly, or breathe underwater. I guess that’s why he was a high school teacher and not a professor
@@fvictor77 My teacher was a woman and she has a PhD in Biology and Physics. She's definitely smarter than you because, if you read this correctly, you'd understand her point is exactly the same as the professor in the video, and you also would have noticed I referred to her as a woman, not a man. What a way to make a fool of yourself for everyone who can read this.
@@DarkAngelEU oh she’s a woman. My bad not tryna trigger y’all. But why was she a high school teacher… spend all that on a PHD that obviously means she’s not that great. not claiming to be smarter just that a real scientist would ever call something like that impossible. We’re just not there yet. Did you have a crush on her?
I love how the technique they use for manufacturing this stuff is dead simple on a small scale. Their machine is quite large for the precission, so that's definitely where it gets to an impressive level of engineering, but if you wanted a few millimeters of the stuff, sub-micron precission is super easy to obtain at that level with enough gearing! This gives a lot of hope for the availability of this stuff. I'm sure people will also revolutionize the way it's manufactured to increase the effectiveness, but for this method; basically dead easy and awesome!
YES! Thank you for this! I’ve been watching for someone to talk about van der waals force! I saw a study from MIT where students actually held up a dictionary with a 1cm^2 square of carbon nanotubes. Super cool tech. Didn’t realized someone had worked van der waals into a tape.
You know my epiphany from this video? I always thought Van der Waals force was sort of a suction cup. You just taught me something new. Thanks Veritasium. Great, in=depth, dive.
Do note, however, that the hairs on a spider's legs also use Van der Waals forces to adhere to surfaces, so it's a different implementation of the same principle.
It is truly amazing what we can do with 'babies first imitation' of nature. It's so exciting to see breakthroughs like this, can't wait to see where this tech goes in the future.
Well, evolution just had a very early start compared to human designs. That’s really its single advantage. We can do better and we already have been doing better for centuries (for example, wheel-based tech, electromagnetic tech, in general many obscure things I don’t know about). So I’m double hyped. Guys simplified the material and made it even more usable (I mean, I don’t know how geckos regenerate their skin material when it damages over time, being so delicate; I bet it uses a lot of complicated biochemical processes-but this material is cleaned to a nice degree just by using sticky tape?-that’s neat.
@@05degrees We cant do better than God, unfortunately. Natural design is superior to every attempt at human imitation, and you cant name a single design that doesnt have a better natural counterpart that is immeasurably more efficient.
@@daddyfuse50 every human design is natural its arrived from the same process of evolution as the ones we see in nature. We are not separate from this. An alien species could look at our inventions and say wow how beautiful is nature.
I had my equivalent of a Disney moment in my garden a few weeks ago when a gecko landed on the back of my hand. Having the real thing walk across my skin was remarkable. I swear that I could feel the pads of its feet moulding to the profile of my skin and this video kind of confirms that experience. (Beautiful little shimmering speckled beasty!) I let it down gently onto a tussock grass and it went on its way. Biomimetics has much to teach us.
It's less than 100lbs it's exerting. Using a car like this is highly deceptive. It's still very cool stuff. But the demonstration pull is not what it seems. It's like when Toyota shows them pulling a space shuttle with a tundra. It only needed like 500 foot pounds of force to get it moving
@@MajorMokoto Its not meant to be pulling weight , its real use case is in robotic arms to handle delicate items where weight is not an issue and can not use conventional robotic arms because pressure exerted by conventional arms will damage the delicate items
1:05 as a fellow scientist, you can tell this professor practised how to explain his work in just 1 minute. this is his branding statement that he has refined over years and years of research and iteration with a branding statement like this, he can get funding, recruit students, and inspire other researchers all in under 1 minute just a side observation that I thought I can share. this branding statement is as much virtuoso as playing a hard piece on a violin
It's a nice, succinct summary, but it's also clearly edited. Watch it again. Maybe they just edited out the moments where he wasn't talking, but they could have also edited out some extra comments.
@Ithecastic this isn't at all how university research works and you have a massively skewed perspective of what D.I.E. represents :) what is your experience with university research and what led you to have this thought?
Amazing! Back in march 2015 I happened to walk into Mark Cutkosky's lab and talked to him. I saw some students playing with a heap of plastic geckos next to a wall panel. Now I know what he was up to then.
I'm surprised how creative the team got when manufacturing the material/characterizing the force. I thought it would be closer to the methods of silicon etching and nanostructure growing
Imagine one day in the future when they're able to properly mimic those tiny structures with something like carbon nanotubes, which I imagine would be even stronger and better than the real deal
Would love to see you try to climb with that. I've heard of the attempt or idea at least of using the principle of how Geckos climb many years ago, but no one really knew how it worked as you mentioned so I'm really happy to see such a big step forward not only in the understanding but also application of this principle that was a mystery and challenge for so long.
I've always thought that wander walls forces are very weak. I knew that it acted between the atomic sheets of graphite and holds the entire thing together but after seeing this video I think completely different about this amazing force which could handle sheer strength. Imagine how much strong it would be if we were to replicate it exactly like that of a gecko has!
Just for clarification all forces between partial charged atoms are called van der waals forces what he is specifically referring to is called London dispersion forces
A relatively simple concept, but it’s cool to see practical applications on a microscopic scale. I’ve been caught in a bad snow/ice storm and cut sipes into an old set of tires with a razor blade to achieve a similar result. It works well. If you don’t know this, as a tire rating goes from summer to winter rated the tread pattern will have more and more slices in the tread called sipes.
Follow up to my comment about my grandfather, I sent him this video and he sent me this back 😀 "Thanks I traveled to Brownsville, Texas to collect specimens off the glass walls of the airport terminal building. This was the point of entry into the US probably on imported fruit. We examined the toe of one under a microscope. So I knew of the toe pads in 1967 but did not have the Knowledge of how Van derwald forces worked here. It all makes perfect sense. When you pry one off the glass you had to push it toward its tail and it would just fall off."
Huh, at least on PC, TH-cam removes the part after the video ID (that includes the comment ID) when clicking the link. You have to copy the link and put it in the address bar manually.
Ya know… I’m sitting here again marveling at the fact that this is one of the only channels that continues to spontaneously make me say some exclamation out loud when something is explained. ❤
The original business model of TH-cam was annoying, but at least the ads were reasonable. New flood of invasive, repetitive, and offensive ads are EVIL. Google is now fully dedicated to doing any evil that seems profitable. And censoring complaints, too.
Man. This seems so cool and awesome. I can think of actual practical applications this might have and in about 5 years from now, this might be in our lives in ways unimaginable. Veritasium is one of my favourite channel on YT. Loved the video absolutely!
The way the short for this video is being used is the best way I’ve ever seen a short being used. Basically a sample of the first part of the video, instead of some 1/30 part short compilation. Would be great if all TH-camrs did it this way.
Very cool video. I recall a Mythbusters episode where the team was trying to do this in a duct and how clunky and loud their attempt was using magnets. This material probably would have been much more suited to the task.
As someone who owns two, geckos are fascinating creatures. It's amazing how engineering takes so much inspiration from nature to create innovative designs.
I really appreciate this video. I've long heard about gecko tape and how it uses Van der Walls forces to "stick" but I've not yet seen a comprehensive description of its exact structure, how it is made, and how it is used. You do all of this clearly without the breathlessness and fluff that prior news spots have done. (Yet, your fascination shows and is infectious.) A cool, fun video. Thank you.
Yes, Derek. I do want to see you climb something using gecko socks. One question, regardless of how strong the grip is, the material it's made of has to be strong enough to with stand the weight of what it's pulling doesn't it? So what are those strips made of that can withstand the weight of a car between just 4 of them?
Les bandelettes n'ont pas à supporter le poids de la voiture mais la force de traction et elles sont plusieurs pour se partager cette force donc elles n'ont pas besoin d'être très solide.
Keep in mind the idea that the tape is “pulling” the weight of car is a little misleading. It’s not like the tape needs to hold the weight of a 3000lb sedan. All you need to do to pull a car on flat ground is to overcome the rolling resistance of the car while it is in neutral. For a 3000lbs sedan that might be something like 50-100lbs. This is an amount of force humans can easily provide hence why you’ll see people pushing their car when stuck or out of gas.
You could do the same thing with regular duct tape, since there's not a lot of force involved, but the op provides a valid point. If one were to use this for lifting any meaningful amount of weight, the material will need to be far stronger.
You are the best at storytelling. You have a way to keep me interested in, what would otherwise be, boring topics. Sometimes, I feel like I'm even involved
I recently read the book Pushing Ice and they talk about a fictitious tool “gecko flex” which they use for space walking in vacuum and also as versatile tape. Now I’m imagining all you could do with two little pads of this and a rubber band.
I have been working on similar projects for about a year and a half now mainly to stick things to other things in the pharmaceutical industry, so that we don’t use adhesive. My solution to making the exact copy of a gecko feet is to actually use silicone to mold a negative of actual gecko feet. And then a copy and edit paste until you have a surface that is large enough that you can create a metallic mold. Because there is no solution to making something that small other than nature itself. For example, bacteria have tiny, small little hairs that we could never manufacture, but we could copy it off of a bacteria.
Scientists seem to be relatively close to developing the ability to manipulate genomes enough to custom-build cells. So maybe, in near future, can program cellular "factories" to grow useful amounts of these nanostructures instead?
Bro you know your science that's for sure. You're incredibly entertaining to listen to. I love science but I'll be the first one to say I wish I had made it a bigger part of my life.
Great video! My son has 4 crested geckos and it’s amazing how they stick to and climb on the glass of their enclosure. Their feet feel funny too and it’s always made us wonder how
Amazing. Definitely want to see some climbing- but definitely as equally interested in real commercial uses- there's definitely applications in emergency self rescue type stuff- but what about something like picking up a car or a windshield? I love the idea of conveyers/sprag type deals. This is neat stuff. even just as a tape to stick to itself in a strip- in theory it could be used to wrap things, and then be released by a brief pulsed torsional shock.
The applications for this in the trad climbing community could be great. In trad climbing, gear is placed in cracks and faults in the rock to catch a potential fall, but this isn't really possible currently on flatter surfaces with less cracks for gear placement. With this it could be possible to place gear on a flat surface, let it sit there while the climber climbs, and catch their fall if they do. It would completely open up a whole world of harder trad climbs that haven't been possible due to lack of gear placements for protection.
I always had the concept of something being sticky to attach or pull something but your video explaining something getting attached due to forces at atomic level mesmerizes me and makes me way more curious. Thank you for putting out such great concepts with such lucid explanations.
Now that I see this, it would be really effective in drag strip racing! All that grip would mean the tires can be smaller, or the engine can make more power and negate any wheel spin. I think it would be really cool if this tech is implemented in that way
What's interesting to realise is that nature does not have names for things or classification of sciences like we do. To nature, everything evolved up from atoms - whether inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, mountains, lightning, the tidal bulge, living beings or star systems. It's the same laws, applied everywhere. We just need to figure out how they work in combination to explain a given phenomenon.
The gecko obviously didn't evolve, it was designed and created. Ask yourself how things evolved, and don't be satisfied with the 'oh it took millions of years' answer.
@@TN-es7ei For all I care, if there's a god or gods, god(s) could have planned the evolution, which then would mean you're diminishing gods work, which goes against everything every religion says.
Ben from Applied Science did a video on this kind of stuff but he couldn't make it that well, I'd love to see the process to make this and if it's possible to do in a workshop. That would be an awesome project.
@@ABaumstumpf Yeah absolutely, I thought this video was them cracking the code, it was a little funny to hear this guy say that you can't make what geckos actually have which is absolutely true and that's the same problem Ben from AP ran into
Damn. You are the type of channel that inspires me to research nature ( Im studying biotechnology, due to the wonders of nature, which I often learn from these type of channels )
Similar to how Velcro hook & loop has great sheer strength, while being easy to peal off. It's always amazing to see how nature found the most efficient way to accomplish these tasks.
It's kind of the opposite principle behind self cleaning windows. They're very bumpy so that water won't stick as it would if they were smooth. Those were based on lily pads
I can see a lot of applications for this stuff. Mountain climbers would love this when you’re just starting, builders would find this useful when trying to set up a safety line, heck I can even envisioning spec ops use these as well. Not only that, think of all the possibilities for that stuff.
Hey, if anyone is reading this comment, it would mean the world to me if we can get Derek to make a video on the Nobel Prize winners! I believe it was on quantum entanglement ( Which I am sure Derek has done a video in the past about) but to get a new refresher on that type of content with the way Derek explains things would be absolutely amazing!!! I cant do this without people liking this comment so PLEASE ITS UP TO YOU! Imagine the animations! Imagine the explanations! We love you!
This was a top 10 textile innovation for 2013-2014. I wonder how current the info in this video is. That said this is the first time I learned about the product.
All those branches in the microscope shot of the gecko pads are very similar to how nature figures things out. In the case of nature, most of the branches don't work, but a few do, resulting in evolution and natural selection. (Multiple sources say about 99% of species go extinct.) A "working" branch doesn't mean the _best_ selection, it just means the one that got to make babies and pass its DNA forward, making at least one more branch. Geckos are a very weird and very cool group of branches.
A few problems with the theory of evolution. 1. Gaps in the Fossil Record: The fossil record provides valuable evidence for the history of life on Earth. However, there are gaps in the fossil record where transitional forms between different species or major groups are missing. This has led to questions and debates about the completeness of the fossil record and the extent of transitional fossils. 2. Origin of Complex Structures: The origin of complex structures and organs in organisms, such as the eye or the bacterial flagellum, has been a topic of discussion. Critics argue that the step-by-step evolution of such complex structures through natural selection and gradual modifications may pose challenges. 3. Irreducible Complexity: The concept of irreducible complexity, proposed by biochemist Michael Behe, suggests that certain biological systems are so intricately designed that their components are interdependent, making it unlikely for them to have evolved in a stepwise manner. However, this argument has been challenged by evolutionary biologists who argue that complex structures can evolve through incremental changes, with intermediate stages serving different functions. 4. Origin of Life: The theory of evolution focuses on the diversity and adaptation of life forms once life has originated. The question of how life originated from non-living matter, known as abiogenesis, is a separate field of study. While there are various hypotheses and ongoing research in this area, the exact mechanisms of abiogenesis are still not fully understood. 5. Genetic and Epigenetic Factors: Advances in genetics and epigenetics have provided new insights into the complexity of gene regulation and hereditary mechanisms. Some argue that these factors challenge certain aspects of traditional evolutionary theory, raising questions about the role of non-genetic inheritance, epigenetic modifications, and the interplay between genes and the environment in evolution.
Yeah its nature ofcourse, surely gaslighting yourself into thinking that something this precise is somehow has been created rather than asking yourself that someone with a higher power has to be the creator is mind blowing to me.
You got me standing in awe with just the fact that the non-sticky tape sticks to surfaces depending on its orientation and holds very well judging by the objects you were hanging. Absolutely mind-boggling. There has to be a caveat for wide range use, hasn't there? If not, this will be perhaps the number one future technology. In my eyes it will be one of those turning points where you can reminisce how you saw history change in your lifetime.
You could use multiple directions in the structure to make it strong in shear on multiple axis, but there's no way to make it strong on the normal axis, though I guess you could always combine it with suction to get the forces going in the first place.
Yes there's a couple of caveats: it only sticks to something smooth, not rough, just as our fingers won't stick to glass, this probably won't stick to our fingers. I was impressed that one shot showed a robot on what appeared to be a brick wall, so maybe I'm wrong? I would hop so. 2nd caveat: it's very difficult to manufacture. Which they showed. I'm wondering if it would be more practical to simply raise geckos for their feet. Not nice to geckos, but hopefully they can also find a more efficient way to manufacture this gecko tape.
@@comicus01 problem: hard to manufacture known information: gecko has better version solution: put gecko on the bottom of robot feet or hands as grippers
It's basically like a cat's tongue. Rough in one direction, not in others. For instance, climbing a building, you have to be VERY careful not to have a strong sideways force or you fall off.
@@brrrrrr Exactly! We use animals for all sorts of things already, is it really that much of a stretch? But mass produced gecko tape would be really cool
Hi Veritasium, For the purpose of accuracy, the gecko in your demonstration @3:14 is a leopard gecko. This is one of the few geckos which uses claws instead of grippy pads and cannot climb on glasslike surfaces. A better model would have been a crested gecko. -my gecko obsessed partner.
I had a Gecko growing up and I was wondering what to name him and he was just sticking there on the side and I was checking out his cute little toes. It was instant really as soon as I looked at them, his name was Toes and lived a very long and healthy live of many crickets and critters.
This is really cool, I remember about 5 years ago I was touring UMass Amherst where they have a Geckskin lab. They used kevlar or carbon fiber backing with polyurethane or PDMS as the polymer for gripping the surface. It was super cool to see in action and I didn't know other universities were doing similar things
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Thanks so much to Derek and team for visiting our lab! This was a great video on our gecko-inspired adhesives, and the best explanation yet of Van der Waals forces.
are there a limit to how much you can use each piece of gecko adhesive? do the small structures degrade overtime so its not as sticky anymore?
Great work you're doing. Nature is so inspiring and we have so much to learn. Question: did you do tests, how your product works/doesn't work on anti-stick (Lotus inspired) materials? Keep up the good work :)
Would it be possible to cover a pipe with the material so that it could be used instead of tire profile. I think it would create way more friction/traction than any slick tire would in good conditions. The pipe would just have to be long enough to have enough contact points… please try and tell me how it went, would be super cool
@White Rabbit when we are asleep we are still conscious. Many people are ignorant on the aspect of what consciousness really is but in the reality we are always awake. It really shows that when we are awake we still don’t know anything given our ego of perception.
I assume it's not currently available as a commercial product, but I might have a non-robotics use for it.. is there a way to get some to experiment? This is just amazing.
I remember years ago as a young teen reading in a science magazine that someone was developing this. It's so cool to actually learn about the progress
One of the coolest parts of science is revisiting a topic a few years later and realizing they found the answer they were looking for and from that, 6 new questions arose lol.
What seems to be the first paper written about this was written in 2012.
Me too.
That is indeed very cool lol
Ya, I’m pretty sure 15-20 years ago it was on discovery on that daily science show (I forget it’s name).
Definitely the most impressive gecko tape I've seen. Neat stuff
It's definitely the most impressive gecko tape I've seen too, which is not saying much, since this is the *only* gecko tape I've seen...
Now we just need you to show us how to make it for the price of the change between the couch cushions and an expired Arby's coupon
Yeah top 5
That's the second most impressive gecko tape I've ever seen.
I guess you're going to make some soon?
make sure the wax is almost perfectly flat before cutting the grooves... which should definitely be done by a machine 🤔
if you're able to get those ridges longer, it should be able to stick to rougher surfaces, since they can comply a lot better.
I remember watching a seminar on this topic during my UCSB freshman chemical engineering orientation tour in 2009. Crazy to see the early research I learned about coming to fruition 14 years later.
Developed at SRI?
my dad worked on gecko adhesion at ucsb
@5:01 "we cannot make what the geck has" loved the level of awe he has for the geckos architecture
God's creative ability cannot be replicated by humans! His design will always be better
@@Blobbyo25 inb4 ages like milk after enough time
@@ithecastic I never actually said anything about religion itself, just that humans will eventually be able to create things on the level of nature, and you go to insult me on a whim, but I'm the simple minded one?
He is to dumb
@@JohnSmith-lc1ml apparently your reply was just way too far for TH-cam, it got automatically deleted lmao
I'm blown away by how Vertiasium finds such fascinating topics all the time. I love so much learning fun things like this!
I see what you did, it's Bradtastic.
He find topics you only think about when your high lmfao. Dude is great and makes everything interesting.
He's basically Vsauce, with less weirdness and more travelling. I am always excited when new video comes out.
people contact him
This tech has been around for some time, perhaps not as matured as it is now. I remember a buzz during the time one of the MI movies came out where Tom Cruise uses an advanced(albeit fictional) version of this to climb the Burj Khalifa.
I love stuff like this
Very nice
Nice
i like it
Very nice 👍
Hi
I had a school project about biophysics and me and my group chose to talk about the geckos' adhesion, the van der waals forces are only one part of the very complex mechanism these animals use to climb! It's crazy how seemingly simple things in nature can be so complex and how we can learn from these things to build cool stuff. Great video :)
I'm curious what the other parts are?
Idea that a living organism, and somewhat large at that, uses van der waal forces to move is mindblowing
Evolution finds a way.
Evolution may be a slow and highly stochastic process but it'll optimize the hell out of solutions to problems.
No way it happened without intelligence
@@isaack6491 wdym
@@isaack6491
Agreed.
No way random processes can produce what the smartest humans alive cannot replicate.
I remember in one of my nanotechnology courses at university around 2012 one of the physics lecturers told us about people investigating this sort of technology. Amazing to see it in action.
Kinda shows how University can have a place, but it ends up being a fraction of our lives in many cases. Uni didn't really say we'd move on and never need them, for reasons.
I've seen research like this for years. I think there was even a Bill Nye episode iirc. This is probably the furthest it's come since.
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2012 i was in 7th grade, interested in geckos and found the same news. Glad, that they finally understood geckos more and made gecko tape^^
@@ricoparadiso ☮️☯️
This exact effect was the reason I studied materials science in my masters. It's just incredible how far we have come, that we are able to use such effects on materials that *.*
And how much yet we have still to learn. Look on how far from an actual gecko we still are
@@Josh_728 I'd imagine so if the vinyl sheets mentioned use this force, but I have noticed some that are noticeably sticky one one side so perhaps some indeed use a thin adhesive in some fashion
@@enorazza Right? I'm so curious how much better is the gecko than the artificial version, considering we seem to be able to fill the same surface area. Is it something like 80% as good, 95% as good? What if it were like half as good as the gecko? Crazy to think of the possibilities were that the case and we just need to iterate on the processes
Very cool, what materials are you working on now?
@@spkane86 as they say in the video, what they can do is a very raw bad approx of what a gecko can. I would say they do not more than a mere 5-10% (i am being optimistic) and so, the possibilities are HUGE. We need to learn how to build something purely from a DNA.. like a cell does. Crispr is great to modify DNA, but to have a sheet of "gecko foot" made from the Gecko DNA (and then even improving it!) is pure science fiction nowadays. Having this capability will open the "God door" with unimaginable possibilities. We are so so far from that (50 years?)
I really thought those little ridges would be going the other direction, and gripping into whatever they were holding! But this is even more interesting. Looking forward to where this tech could lead in a few years/decades!
2
Q
I _LOVE_ that you've published this. My nine year old has started a new theme at school this month, called biomimicry... I'm going to show this video to her; she'll love it.
🤬
@lowrider 99
Why
Humble brag that it's a nine-year-old who is interested in biomimicry.
@@Space_toast0 🤬
My grandfather has a PhD in zoology and biology. I'll never forget the day when he showed me a scientific journal entry with a picture of this and how fascinating they were to him. He is an ichthyologist, so it wasn't his area of expertise; however, there were always some facts he could add to a situation or story, and how he described that truly humbled me at the time and still does. I credit my grandfather for my curiosity and thank creators like you for making me extremely proud of him, highlighting fascinating things in our universe, and invigorating those who are hungry for more knowledge. Thank you.
I hope to be a marine biologist and have been going to the aquarium lately and seeing their feet and have been fascinated as well as your grandfather, the detail is beautiful
It's all thanks to God and His design.
@@conservativeriot5939 You just had to go there, huh?
@@itsnetts why not? God is the one that deserves credit for His design.
That's awesome. And thank you for commenting. What did he study exactly?
I used to have a Crested Gecko - I loved watching him climb. They curl their toes upward to release their grip, and lay them flat to support their weight. It was fascinating to watch.
Gecko here, and it is hilarious how much humans have to do to mimic a fraction of our power....
Very funny, hey when was the last time you went to space? Oops you can’t!
Geckos are permanently banned from space flight
@@someasiandude4797 🔥🔥🔥That burnt me good
cuz thats the creation of god .
@@someasiandude4797 why would he need to go to space? he is good in earth. btw have u ever gone to space?? are u an astronaut ?
I hope one day this technology is adapted as plasters/medical tape.
My newborn requires an NG tube for feeding and we have to tape it to his cheek, but he is allergic to adhesive and we are now in a battle over managing his poor skin degrading.
It makes me happy to think how future families in similar situations could benefit from this concept.
I’m so sorry to hear that my friend, I can’t imagine how it is for you guys. May All the Best be with you.
This technology has lots of applications in manufacturing industry and biomedtech
That is so sad. Is there no hypoallogenic adhesive that could help?
I recommend looking for hypoallergenic tape if you haven't already, many people who are sensitive to adhesive find it to be a life saver.
Try Hypoallergenic band aid
Wow i remember when i was younger, my family didn't have cable so i was stuck watching local TV. One of my favorite shows was on PBS kids called Wild Kratts. These 2 guys taught you all about animals but one of my favorites was the Gecko. The guys in this show had Gecko-inspired suits which i always wanted to be real. This is really making my childhood dreams come true
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This is one of the most impressive and incredible things that I’ve seen in a long time.
hehe nice
Imagine if we used this concept, then applied it to every day walking shoes/ slip resistant boots or foot wear in general. Cool concept
Years on after leaving school and I am continuously impressed by the quality of the content you provide for free that far exceeds most institutions. It’s just amazing how simply you explain concepts in a quarter of an hour.
It is free for us to enjoy, yet he is paid for his content. In fact, the more we consume, the more he is paid! An amazing system indeed.
@@MrTrevortxeartxe The unbiased curtain nearly harass because condition especially embarrass over a jagged salt. wooden, sloppy share
@@MrTrevortxeartxe angry birds.
That's why the school is
@@fard22223what?
When I was in School, about 15 years ago, we had this book "Geko's Foot" in our library, it was full of how amazing and fascinating the Geko's foot was! The ideas discussed in the book are now a reality! Science does make progress!
It's kinda sad that this is the progress after decades.
@@earthlingsixbillionsomethi2486 it makes nature even more amazing
@@earthlingsixbillionsomethi2486
Things have always taken quite a while. We just didn't hear about the research until it was getting close to market.
We might be more advanced than in decades past, but we're also doing more complicated things.
It took NASA 20 years to get JWST done. But they had to invent half a dozen new technologies and advance them enough to be usable in space.
It took 11 years to make the Blu-ray. Even though it's just a DVD with a different color laser and new programming.
It was 80 years after the invention of the fridge before you could buy one in a store.
@@lordgarion514 I mean it is easier to sit your ass at home and demand progress when you are not the one at work. We tend to see scientific and technological advancement as something that is bound to happen and that we are 100% entitled to. Although it's like it's almost impossible to slow its pace down now 'cause many hands are on deck, these things have always been done by people like ourselves and they actually take time. It's just that successful ones are easy to spot than thousand of the unknown, failed procedures leading to successful ones.
this is absolutely amazing! a professor of inorganic chemistry i had in college used geckos to explain van de waals forces. He went on saying that geckos used the induced dipoles to attach themselves to walls, but weak as those forces are, they were not enough to make a new substance, or else we would end up with some "wall geckoate" (free translation) everytime a gecko climbs something
So cool to learn how this stuff is actually made! I've been hearing about the gecko tech for years and all it can do, this is truly awesome.
Hello Derek,
I have an idea for a video. In chemistry, I learned that in redox reactions, electrons transfer, but it was never quite explained how or why exactly they do it. I would love a video about this process, which I found out is explained using quantum mechanics. That way, I might finally understand how the electrochemical potential table forms and why different organisms are an-/aerobic on a deeper level. If you (not Derek) read this and also wonder how this works, I would appreciate if you could give this comment a push so that Derek sees it.
Thanks, keep up the good work, and greetings from Switzerland.
Alejandro
Second!
Push
++
Push
push
I remember people telling me gecko tape would NEVER be possible, even the guy inventing this tape says so, but he still persisted and they developed something that comes pretty close to it. This is amazing!
Another dream come true
Who… who said that to you.
@@fvictor77 My high school biology teacher. She pointed out, like the guy in the video, that their suction ability cannot be recreated in a lab. Only something that mimics it.
Well that’s a kinda dumb thing to say especially as a science teacher they were also saying we would never go to the moon, fly, or breathe underwater. I guess that’s why he was a high school teacher and not a professor
@@fvictor77 My teacher was a woman and she has a PhD in Biology and Physics. She's definitely smarter than you because, if you read this correctly, you'd understand her point is exactly the same as the professor in the video, and you also would have noticed I referred to her as a woman, not a man.
What a way to make a fool of yourself for everyone who can read this.
@@DarkAngelEU oh she’s a woman. My bad not tryna trigger y’all. But why was she a high school teacher… spend all that on a PHD that obviously means she’s not that great. not claiming to be smarter just that a real scientist would ever call something like that impossible. We’re just not there yet. Did you have a crush on her?
I love how the technique they use for manufacturing this stuff is dead simple on a small scale. Their machine is quite large for the precission, so that's definitely where it gets to an impressive level of engineering, but if you wanted a few millimeters of the stuff, sub-micron precission is super easy to obtain at that level with enough gearing! This gives a lot of hope for the availability of this stuff. I'm sure people will also revolutionize the way it's manufactured to increase the effectiveness, but for this method; basically dead easy and awesome!
I want the gripper with the sg90 servo they showed to badly, it seems perfect for picking up cards.
YES! Thank you for this! I’ve been watching for someone to talk about van der waals force! I saw a study from MIT where students actually held up a dictionary with a 1cm^2 square of carbon nanotubes. Super cool tech. Didn’t realized someone had worked van der waals into a tape.
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You know my epiphany from this video? I always thought Van der Waals force was sort of a suction cup. You just taught me something new. Thanks Veritasium. Great, in=depth, dive.
How can you know about van der waals forces and believe it's a sort of suction cup?
@@Ildarioon that's what im saying. i read articles without taking the time to google the meaning of van der walls
Do note, however, that the hairs on a spider's legs also use Van der Waals forces to adhere to surfaces, so it's a different implementation of the same principle.
It is truly amazing what we can do with 'babies first imitation' of nature. It's so exciting to see breakthroughs like this, can't wait to see where this tech goes in the future.
Well, evolution just had a very early start compared to human designs. That’s really its single advantage. We can do better and we already have been doing better for centuries (for example, wheel-based tech, electromagnetic tech, in general many obscure things I don’t know about). So I’m double hyped. Guys simplified the material and made it even more usable (I mean, I don’t know how geckos regenerate their skin material when it damages over time, being so delicate; I bet it uses a lot of complicated biochemical processes-but this material is cleaned to a nice degree just by using sticky tape?-that’s neat.
@@05degrees We cant do better than God, unfortunately. Natural design is superior to every attempt at human imitation, and you cant name a single design that doesnt have a better natural counterpart that is immeasurably more efficient.
@@daddyfuse50 every human design is natural its arrived from the same process of evolution as the ones we see in nature. We are not separate from this. An alien species could look at our inventions and say wow how beautiful is nature.
This is what "thinking outside the box" looks like
@@05degreesimagine believing in evolution
Gecko: *elegant, unique solution for climbing things*
Squirrel: "SO ANYWAY, I JUST DIG MY CLAWS IN LIKE THIS"
I had my equivalent of a Disney moment in my garden a few weeks ago when a gecko landed on the back of my hand. Having the real thing walk across my skin was remarkable. I swear that I could feel the pads of its feet moulding to the profile of my skin and this video kind of confirms that experience. (Beautiful little shimmering speckled beasty!) I let it down gently onto a tussock grass and it went on its way. Biomimetics has much to teach us.
A gecko falling on my hand is my worst nightmare since I have Batrachophobia.
What is a Disney moment
💀
@@Hzur do you mean Herpetophobia (fear of reptiles) ? Batrachophobia is fear of frogs
@@East16They are incredibly afraid that the gecko is friends with a frog.
The fact that it only took six of those tiny robots to pull a car is kind of insane.
What are you talking about? It was four pieces of gecko tape that supported the winch that pulled the car
I will add without prior knowledge!
It's less than 100lbs it's exerting. Using a car like this is highly deceptive. It's still very cool stuff. But the demonstration pull is not what it seems. It's like when Toyota shows them pulling a space shuttle with a tundra. It only needed like 500 foot pounds of force to get it moving
@@MajorMokoto Its not meant to be pulling weight , its real use case is in robotic arms to handle delicate items where weight is not an issue and can not use conventional robotic arms because pressure exerted by conventional arms will damage the delicate items
@@BondJFK exactly. Which is why it's deceptive to show them pulling a car. And give the wrong impression of its capabilities.
1:05
as a fellow scientist, you can tell this professor practised how to explain his work in just 1 minute.
this is his branding statement that he has refined over years and years of research and iteration
with a branding statement like this, he can get funding, recruit students, and inspire other researchers all in under 1 minute
just a side observation that I thought I can share. this branding statement is as much virtuoso as playing a hard piece on a violin
Nice
It's a nice, succinct summary, but it's also clearly edited. Watch it again. Maybe they just edited out the moments where he wasn't talking, but they could have also edited out some extra comments.
@Ithecastic this isn't at all how university research works and you have a massively skewed perspective of what D.I.E. represents :) what is your experience with university research and what led you to have this thought?
@@okayfine6342 As a fellow scientist, I agree this is a wtf? Maybe trying to skew youtube search results?
@@JaredBrewerAerospace probably one of those "end wokeness" guys
Amazing!
Back in march 2015 I happened to walk into Mark Cutkosky's lab and talked to him. I saw some students playing with a heap of plastic geckos next to a wall panel. Now I know what he was up to then.
sure
I'm surprised how creative the team got when manufacturing the material/characterizing the force. I thought it would be closer to the methods of silicon etching and nanostructure growing
Honestly seemed a bit jury-rigged. But if it works why make it unnecessarily fancy, right?
Hey what does the gecko say? ^^
Nothing you f*ck*ng r*t*rd, it's a mf gecko !
@@Sibula Wrong question. If you want to show something off, why NOT make it unnecessarily fancy?
time and programming. also this is like super prototype level
Imagine one day in the future when they're able to properly mimic those tiny structures with something like carbon nanotubes, which I imagine would be even stronger and better than the real deal
Would love to see you try to climb with that.
I've heard of the attempt or idea at least of using the principle of how Geckos climb many years ago, but no one really knew how it worked as you mentioned so I'm really happy to see such a big step forward not only in the understanding but also application of this principle that was a mystery and challenge for so long.
Yeah but you heard the man. We can't make spatula.
Also, we need the man, so go climb a building yourself, please
@@Pussmash yet.
maybe in the future with more sophisticated technology we might be able to do so.
@lJ_K 3D printing will just get better and better, I think that might be a possible way to do it one day. Technology is amazing for sure.
I've always thought that wander walls forces are very weak. I knew that it acted between the atomic sheets of graphite and holds the entire thing together but after seeing this video I think completely different about this amazing force which could handle sheer strength.
Imagine how much strong it would be if we were to replicate it exactly like that of a gecko has!
Just for clarification all forces between partial charged atoms are called van der waals forces what he is specifically referring to is called London dispersion forces
@@florianambach2938 oh! Thanks! 😊
Those forces are also what keep the polymer chains in thermoplastics together
A relatively simple concept, but it’s cool to see practical applications on a microscopic scale. I’ve been caught in a bad snow/ice storm and cut sipes into an old set of tires with a razor blade to achieve a similar result. It works well. If you don’t know this, as a tire rating goes from summer to winter rated the tread pattern will have more and more slices in the tread called sipes.
Follow up to my comment about my grandfather, I sent him this video and he sent me this back 😀
"Thanks
I traveled to Brownsville, Texas to collect specimens off the glass walls of the airport terminal building. This was the point of entry into the US probably on imported fruit. We examined the toe of one under a microscope. So I knew of the toe pads in 1967 but did not have the Knowledge of how Van derwald forces worked here. It all makes perfect sense. When you pry one off the glass you had to push it toward its tail and it would just fall off."
what was your previous comment?
Huh, at least on PC, TH-cam removes the part after the video ID (that includes the comment ID) when clicking the link. You have to copy the link and put it in the address bar manually.
Ya know… I’m sitting here again marveling at the fact that this is one of the only channels that continues to spontaneously make me say some exclamation out loud when something is explained. ❤
The original business model of TH-cam was annoying, but at least the ads were reasonable.
New flood of invasive, repetitive, and offensive ads are EVIL.
Google is now fully dedicated to doing any evil that seems profitable.
And censoring complaints, too.
If you like great explanations pop over to godgevlamste continents and time zones
Man. This seems so cool and awesome. I can think of actual practical applications this might have and in about 5 years from now, this might be in our lives in ways unimaginable.
Veritasium is one of my favourite channel on YT.
Loved the video absolutely!
It won't be, it was made more than 10 years ago, and it's still not on the market for some reason
Derek DEFINITELY needs to climb a wall, I'd love to see that
4:32 I find this visualization of human skin's relative roughness to be oddly disturbing.
The way the short for this video is being used is the best way I’ve ever seen a short being used. Basically a sample of the first part of the video, instead of some 1/30 part short compilation. Would be great if all TH-camrs did it this way.
Very cool video. I recall a Mythbusters episode where the team was trying to do this in a duct and how clunky and loud their attempt was using magnets. This material probably would have been much more suited to the task.
This is why i LOVE science even though im 13 its so hard to grasp but once you get even the tiniest grasp on it, it is AWESOME.
As someone who owns two, geckos are fascinating creatures. It's amazing how engineering takes so much inspiration from nature to create innovative designs.
Do they sometimes give out little gecko-barks? I like the sound of that.
I really appreciate this video. I've long heard about gecko tape and how it uses Van der Walls forces to "stick" but I've not yet seen a comprehensive description of its exact structure, how it is made, and how it is used. You do all of this clearly without the breathlessness and fluff that prior news spots have done. (Yet, your fascination shows and is infectious.)
A cool, fun video. Thank you.
big big yes to the van der wall force!!!! was looking for this comment :D
It’s actually substantially incorrect. Gecko mimics have been created without the structure present at all. The microstructure is not needed
*Aggressively plays Mission Impossible theme song*
Ok... hear me out.... we make gecko skin gloves??
11:45 how is that a question? OF COURSE WE WANT TO SEE THAT!
It's like asking a south magnet to repel a north magnet.
Yes, Derek. I do want to see you climb something using gecko socks.
One question, regardless of how strong the grip is, the material it's made of has to be strong enough to with stand the weight of what it's pulling doesn't it? So what are those strips made of that can withstand the weight of a car between just 4 of them?
Les bandelettes n'ont pas à supporter le poids de la voiture mais la force de traction et elles sont plusieurs pour se partager cette force donc elles n'ont pas besoin d'être très solide.
Keep in mind the idea that the tape is “pulling” the weight of car is a little misleading. It’s not like the tape needs to hold the weight of a 3000lb sedan. All you need to do to pull a car on flat ground is to overcome the rolling resistance of the car while it is in neutral. For a 3000lbs sedan that might be something like 50-100lbs. This is an amount of force humans can easily provide hence why you’ll see people pushing their car when stuck or out of gas.
You mean the ones they use to pull the car with the little robots? It isn't withstanding the car's weight, just the pulling force
You could do the same thing with regular duct tape, since there's not a lot of force involved, but the op provides a valid point. If one were to use this for lifting any meaningful amount of weight, the material will need to be far stronger.
The object you climb would also need to support your weight.
Great video! Thanks for creating so many quality videos over the years!
I keep picturing Tom Cruise climbing the Burj Khalifa
That would be a cool movie, probably a spy or hitman theme, but also this project is awesome.
@@DrippyPootis It already happened in MI:4 - Ghost Protocol back in 2011
You are the best at storytelling. You have a way to keep me interested in, what would otherwise be, boring topics.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm even involved
I recently read the book Pushing Ice and they talk about a fictitious tool “gecko flex” which they use for space walking in vacuum and also as versatile tape. Now I’m imagining all you could do with two little pads of this and a rubber band.
I have been working on similar projects for about a year and a half now mainly to stick things to other things in the pharmaceutical industry, so that we don’t use adhesive. My solution to making the exact copy of a gecko feet is to actually use silicone to mold a negative of actual gecko feet. And then a copy and edit paste until you have a surface that is large enough that you can create a metallic mold. Because there is no solution to making something that small other than nature itself. For example, bacteria have tiny, small little hairs that we could never manufacture, but we could copy it off of a bacteria.
Scientists seem to be relatively close to developing the ability to manipulate genomes enough to custom-build cells. So maybe, in near future, can program cellular "factories" to grow useful amounts of these nanostructures instead?
Bro you know your science that's for sure. You're incredibly entertaining to listen to. I love science but I'll be the first one to say I wish I had made it a bigger part of my life.
Great video! My son has 4 crested geckos and it’s amazing how they stick to and climb on the glass of their enclosure. Their feet feel funny too and it’s always made us wonder how
This was fascinating! Derek, you already know that we want you to make the video on the climbing glasses with gecko tape. Please, please make it ❤️
Amazing. Definitely want to see some climbing- but definitely as equally interested in real commercial uses- there's definitely applications in emergency self rescue type stuff- but what about something like picking up a car or a windshield? I love the idea of conveyers/sprag type deals. This is neat stuff. even just as a tape to stick to itself in a strip- in theory it could be used to wrap things, and then be released by a brief pulsed torsional shock.
The applications for this in the trad climbing community could be great. In trad climbing, gear is placed in cracks and faults in the rock to catch a potential fall, but this isn't really possible currently on flatter surfaces with less cracks for gear placement. With this it could be possible to place gear on a flat surface, let it sit there while the climber climbs, and catch their fall if they do.
It would completely open up a whole world of harder trad climbs that haven't been possible due to lack of gear placements for protection.
11:12 the researchers just cringing at the Gecko tape getting dirty due to blobbing on table.
Veristium basically went to this lab to read the poster they made. This is a testament to how useful and how well done that poster is.
I always had the concept of something being sticky to attach or pull something but your video explaining something getting attached due to forces at atomic level mesmerizes me and makes me way more curious.
Thank you for putting out such great concepts with such lucid explanations.
I see this material being what holds paintings and tv's on the wall in the future, leaving no marks or holes
The best things humans have / create we steal or learn from nature! awesome stuff.
POV : when uncle ben makes Spider-Man suit
Now that I see this, it would be really effective in drag strip racing! All that grip would mean the tires can be smaller, or the engine can make more power and negate any wheel spin. I think it would be really cool if this tech is implemented in that way
Pulling the car is a neat visual but mostly a gimmick. It's heavy but doesn't resist rolling very much. This is some awesome material though.
3:13 Happy little Gecko, walking
🎶 Happy little gecko. What he do? 🎶 Happy little gecko. What he do? 🎶
I remember reading about the early stages of this research in a magazine at school when I was a kid. Awesome to see how far it's come!
Very interesting that the gecko evolved into having those nano structures. So so fascinating
What's interesting to realise is that nature does not have names for things or classification of sciences like we do. To nature, everything evolved up from atoms - whether inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, mountains, lightning, the tidal bulge, living beings or star systems. It's the same laws, applied everywhere. We just need to figure out how they work in combination to explain a given phenomenon.
@@anandsharma7430 One generation of lizard got born one time and realized it has crazy good traction.
The gecko obviously didn't evolve, it was designed and created. Ask yourself how things evolved, and don't be satisfied with the 'oh it took millions of years' answer.
@@TN-es7ei Either is a possibility, I'm all up for aliens doing genetic engineering. :P
@@TN-es7ei For all I care, if there's a god or gods, god(s) could have planned the evolution, which then would mean you're diminishing gods work, which goes against everything every religion says.
11:30 bro really said "I'm suction cup man, look at me go!"
Thank you Derek for always teaching us new things. I love your work! It helps me so much!
Ben from Applied Science did a video on this kind of stuff but he couldn't make it that well, I'd love to see the process to make this and if it's possible to do in a workshop. That would be an awesome project.
I second this. I personally would love to play around with this material
But Ben also tried something way harder with making it not straight ridges that only work in 1 direction but individual strands.
@@ABaumstumpf Yeah absolutely, I thought this video was them cracking the code, it was a little funny to hear this guy say that you can't make what geckos actually have which is absolutely true and that's the same problem Ben from AP ran into
This is one of the most impressive inventions and best videos I've seen in a long time. Great video, thanks Derek and team
In 2006 I wrote a paper on an article I read regarding this technology. I've been wondering about this stuff for 17 yrs!
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ᴛʜᴀɴᴋs ғᴏʀ ᴡᴀᴛᴄʜɪɴɢ📺••°
It’s amazing that so many genius innovations can be found in nature. No wonder nature does it best when it has had a million year head-start
More like a billion year head start
@@12xenn45 3.5 billions
fun fact, some geckos held on so strong during hurricanes that their arms elongated due to the high wind speeds. This actually happened recently.
They weren't motivated enough
"Never skip finger day, bruh." -some geckos
They need to train harder.
That must have hurt
@@KhanhDinh291 probably. Imagine looking like the gecko version of bigfoot.
Damn. You are the type of channel that inspires me to research nature ( Im studying biotechnology, due to the wonders of nature, which I often learn from these type of channels )
Shame it's gonna get bought, copyrighted, and then never seen again.
Pretty damn cool and impressive material tho
10:09 “PrOduce”
Replicating nature is hard, but when you succeed, it’s nothing less than magical.
Veritasium is one of the best science channel on TH-cam at all we need more channels like that!
You mean to say my childhood dream of climbing walls like spiderman are not just dreams?
Similar to how Velcro hook & loop has great sheer strength, while being easy to peal off. It's always amazing to see how nature found the most efficient way to accomplish these tasks.
I never thought you need a smooth flat surface to make things stick. Incredible.
It's kind of the opposite principle behind self cleaning windows. They're very bumpy so that water won't stick as it would if they were smooth. Those were based on lily pads
I can see a lot of applications for this stuff. Mountain climbers would love this when you’re just starting, builders would find this useful when trying to set up a safety line, heck I can even envisioning spec ops use these as well. Not only that, think of all the possibilities for that stuff.
You have taught me more than the entire 8 years of schooling
Veritasium’s robotics videos are always my favorite ❤️
Hey, if anyone is reading this comment, it would mean the world to me if we can get Derek to make a video on the Nobel Prize winners! I believe it was on quantum entanglement ( Which I am sure Derek has done a video in the past about) but to get a new refresher on that type of content with the way Derek explains things would be absolutely amazing!!! I cant do this without people liking this comment so PLEASE ITS UP TO YOU! Imagine the animations! Imagine the explanations! We love you!
Replying so that this comment gets pushed by the algorithm.
Boop
please do make it
that would be cool
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This was a top 10 textile innovation for 2013-2014. I wonder how current the info in this video is. That said this is the first time I learned about the product.
It is incredibly fascinating that nature somehow figures all this out and utilizes it perfectly
All those branches in the microscope shot of the gecko pads are very similar to how nature figures things out.
In the case of nature, most of the branches don't work, but a few do, resulting in evolution and natural selection. (Multiple sources say about 99% of species go extinct.)
A "working" branch doesn't mean the _best_ selection, it just means the one that got to make babies and pass its DNA forward, making at least one more branch.
Geckos are a very weird and very cool group of branches.
Makes sense to me. Evolution had quite a long time patch the bugs
A few problems with the theory of evolution.
1. Gaps in the Fossil Record: The fossil record provides valuable evidence for the history of life on Earth. However, there are gaps in the fossil record where transitional forms between different species or major groups are missing. This has led to questions and debates about the completeness of the fossil record and the extent of transitional fossils.
2. Origin of Complex Structures: The origin of complex structures and organs in organisms, such as the eye or the bacterial flagellum, has been a topic of discussion. Critics argue that the step-by-step evolution of such complex structures through natural selection and gradual modifications may pose challenges.
3. Irreducible Complexity: The concept of irreducible complexity, proposed by biochemist Michael Behe, suggests that certain biological systems are so intricately designed that their components are interdependent, making it unlikely for them to have evolved in a stepwise manner. However, this argument has been challenged by evolutionary biologists who argue that complex structures can evolve through incremental changes, with intermediate stages serving different functions.
4. Origin of Life: The theory of evolution focuses on the diversity and adaptation of life forms once life has originated. The question of how life originated from non-living matter, known as abiogenesis, is a separate field of study. While there are various hypotheses and ongoing research in this area, the exact mechanisms of abiogenesis are still not fully understood.
5. Genetic and Epigenetic Factors: Advances in genetics and epigenetics have provided new insights into the complexity of gene regulation and hereditary mechanisms. Some argue that these factors challenge certain aspects of traditional evolutionary theory, raising questions about the role of non-genetic inheritance, epigenetic modifications, and the interplay between genes and the environment in evolution.
@@dan9521not really. Want to email and discuss this further? You've got some misconceptions
Yeah its nature ofcourse, surely gaslighting yourself into thinking that something this precise is somehow has been created rather than asking yourself that someone with a higher power has to be the creator is mind blowing to me.
You got me standing in awe with just the fact that the non-sticky tape sticks to surfaces depending on its orientation and holds very well judging by the objects you were hanging.
Absolutely mind-boggling. There has to be a caveat for wide range use, hasn't there? If not, this will be perhaps the number one future technology. In my eyes it will be one of those turning points where you can reminisce how you saw history change in your lifetime.
You could use multiple directions in the structure to make it strong in shear on multiple axis, but there's no way to make it strong on the normal axis, though I guess you could always combine it with suction to get the forces going in the first place.
Yes there's a couple of caveats: it only sticks to something smooth, not rough, just as our fingers won't stick to glass, this probably won't stick to our fingers. I was impressed that one shot showed a robot on what appeared to be a brick wall, so maybe I'm wrong? I would hop so.
2nd caveat: it's very difficult to manufacture. Which they showed. I'm wondering if it would be more practical to simply raise geckos for their feet. Not nice to geckos, but hopefully they can also find a more efficient way to manufacture this gecko tape.
@@comicus01 problem: hard to manufacture
known information: gecko has better version
solution: put gecko on the bottom of robot feet or hands as grippers
It's basically like a cat's tongue. Rough in one direction, not in others. For instance, climbing a building, you have to be VERY careful not to have a strong sideways force or you fall off.
@@brrrrrr Exactly! We use animals for all sorts of things already, is it really that much of a stretch? But mass produced gecko tape would be really cool
Hi Veritasium, For the purpose of accuracy, the gecko in your demonstration @3:14 is a leopard gecko. This is one of the few geckos which uses claws instead of grippy pads and cannot climb on glasslike surfaces. A better model would have been a crested gecko. -my gecko obsessed partner.
I had a Gecko growing up and I was wondering what to name him and he was just sticking there on the side and I was checking out his cute little toes. It was instant really as soon as I looked at them, his name was Toes and lived a very long and healthy live of many crickets and critters.
Full name: Toes van der Waals
I love how till this day and age we look at nature to improve our technology.
This is really cool, I remember about 5 years ago I was touring UMass Amherst where they have a Geckskin lab. They used kevlar or carbon fiber backing with polyurethane or PDMS as the polymer for gripping the surface. It was super cool to see in action and I didn't know other universities were doing similar things
I've also heard about Geckskin, but I don't understand how it works. Do you have any insight into how Geckskin is made, designed, or used?