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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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The gecko adhesive system is a dry, reversible adhesive that is virtually surface-insensitive due to the utilization of intermolecular van der Waals forces. Remarkably, although detailed models of the adhesive mechanism exist and hundreds of gecko-inspired synthetics have been fabricated, our ability to fully replicate the system still falls short. One reason for this is our limited understanding of how the system performs in natural environments. To begin to resolve this I focused on one particular environmental parameter, water. Although thin layers of water can disrupt van der Waals forces, I hypothesized that geckos are able to retain or regain adhesive function on wet surfaces. Surprisingly this hypothesis may not be unreasonable, as many species of gecko are native to the tropics, a climate where we expect surface water to be prevalent. Thus it is likely geckos have some mechanism to overcome the challenges associated with surface water and wetting. My research provides a detailed investigation of how water affects the gecko adhesive system and has applications for synthetic design of adhesives which retain or regain function in water and further motivates the study of this remarkable system in a more environmentally relevant context.
