News Revisited

Ok, here’s an “out of the box” idea for you.  Make your windmills fly so they can take advantage of stronger, more stable winds higher in the atmosphere.  NewScientist discusses four different types that are being tried by groups in the US, Canada, and the Netherlands.

Scientists have been researching gecko feet and their uncanny ability to stick to smooth surfaces with amazing holding strength for some time now.  Each foot is covered in tiny microscopic hairs, called setae, that adhere to surfaces using Van der Waals forces.  Back in 2003 Professor Andre Geim and colleagues at the UK’s University of Manchester developed a tape based on this principal that was strong enough to hold a person suspended from a smooth ceiling by their palm and it could be removed easily by pealing it slowly from one side.  However, it only worked on dry surfaces and didn’t last long. 

Phillip Messersmith of Northwestern University and colleagues have now developed a wet/dry reusable tape with even more holding strength capable of being attached and detached 1,000 times by coating their style of gecko tape with a synthetic glue based on the natural protein glue used by mussels to adhere to rocks.  They found that each silicone pillar on their tape increased its holding power 15 fold when coated with the mussel derived glue.

Graphene, a material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms, has interested scientists for some time.  It has very interesting mechanical, quantum and electrical properties.  It also has interesting implications for physics and materials science.  It has even been compared to materials found in the col