By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Continuing our strangely comic-book themed posts this week (when’s that Spider-Man 3 movie premiere again?), a scientist has proposed a type of suit using technology based on geckos to allow people to climb walls, ala Peter Parker’s alter-ego.
In an upcoming paper, Nicola Pugno, a professor of structural engineering at the Polytechnic University in Turin, Italy, discusses formulas for fashioning carbon nanotubes into superadhesive gloves and boots that could be used to create a Spider-Man-like suit in the near future. He also outlines a theory for using carbon nanotubes to create large invisible cables that could act as human-strength cobwebs.
The designs for the materials are modeled from the adhesive properties of the gecko, a tropical lizard whose sticky feet can scale trees. Source: News.com
We Say: Even if this works, the part I really love, being able to cast webs and swing across a city (and let’s face it, it would only really work in a city like New York anyway … not in the SF Bay Area where I live) doesn’t appear to be in the cards. Heavy sigh.
Only problem would be clean-up. Carbon nanotubes have been shown to kill biological cells. Other than that, who wouldn’t want to fly around a city?
this is great i have been working on something like this for years and i had a breke throw this guys paper should be of some use.
I was at a lecture recently where they solved that problem with nanotubes where they were clumping together – sound waves or something to seperate them!
horray!!!!
that lecture was probably about sorting the nanotubes with from semi conductive or conductive properties, 1 in 3 ratio. anyway i havent bothered reading this dude’s paper but im guessing its nothing new and nothing more then something similar to the space elevator idea.
but what would the suit be used for…i mean i know what i would use it for conyers GA needs some type of hero around here
I also had a spidey-suit in the pipeline, but clumping was never an issue.. (in fact at our place, we term ours the nanoyes tubes)
All hail the innanimate carbon tube! We had an issue with fluffing, not clumping.. We may have stumbled across the answer to this as well.
It was a seperation issue.
Basically, you can get away with a 1 in 3 ratio, but we found that if a ratio of 2 or more large white beach towels were mixed in with when washing our dark-grey-carbon coloured spidey suit, we would end up with fluffing.
And the answer to this is simple – seperate the white fluffy towels from coloured items BEFORE washing.
This all sounds great, but the person using it would have to be in incredible shape to even get to far up the wall. Like a gymnast or mountain climber! I know moving my 6 ft 230 lb frame up the wall would be a lot of work.
The real problem would be that people who can invent such things look terrible in skin-tight body suits. Spindly legs, spare tires around the midriff, or the all-too-common jiggly adiposity would make such technology embarrassingly obscene.
If there is any technology that should be banned, this is probably it.
Just imagine the shock of seeing a middle-aged blubber belly smacking into your penthouse board room window.
Eeeewww.