I’d like to introduce you all to someone
this here is my friend Grayson he’s a
crested gecko he weighs about 20 grams
fits in the palm of your hands
his ancestors come from the island of
New Caledonia and I have had him since
my sophomore year of high school I got
him a reptile show up in Lansing in that
same year I had the opportunity to do an
independent research project for my
final and ap at biology on any topic of
my choosing as long as I convinced my
teacher was brain related to biology and
I chose to investigate what it is that
makes these geckos so sticky so if
you’re not familiar with geckos crested
geckos are one of 60% of gecko species
that are able to adhere to just about
any surface whether it’s man-made or
natural including things like glass
using the adhesive pads and their toes
and the applications of this as the
science of tests have been studying it
it’s just incredible thinking how the
study of these little tiny geckos could
affect the way you live your everyday
life or the way surgeries are done in
the future so scientists have been
looking into this since the late 1900s
there’s been a lot of theories proposed
along the way including a wet adhesion
model that has to do with capillary
action some theories with a suction cup
model some ideas that had to do with the
chemical makeup of their toes and the
actual answer was found in 2002 by a
research team headed by Keller autumn
from the University I’m alright the name
escapes me at the moment but it included
from Lewis and Clark including
scientists from UC Berkeley UC at Santa
Barbra and Stanford and what the Veii
found is that these geckos are able to
adhere to these surfaces through the
amplification of weak van der Waals
forces I understand a lot of you don’t
come from scientific backgrounds so that
statement probably med probably meant
even less to you than everything I’ve
said so far so to give it some context
we’re going to take a step back to
everyone’s favorite general chemistry so
hopefully you remember at least that
everything
in our world is made up of atoms and
molecules atoms mean the basic building
blocks for a universe things like
nitrogen oxygen phosphorus carbon all
those good things and atoms are
comprised of smaller subatomic particles
called electrons neutrons and protons
protons carry a positive charge or
located in the center of the atom in the
nucleus with the charges neutrons and
then electrons little tiny electrons
carrying their negative charge are
orbiting somewhere outside the nucleus
now we like to make all these models and
rules saying there’s two electrons
located in this discrete orbital this
distance from the nucleus and there’s
eight electrons and this next discrete
orbital but think about these electrons
they don’t actually care about all these
rules we make and they kind of do
whatever they want so while we can say
there’s a high probability that they’re
going to be found in this area at any
given moment they really could be
wherever they want so take an atom a
beryllium for example it has four
protons located in the center and four
negative electrons outside giving an
overall neutral charge so just in any
given moment because of this factor of
Ramnath randomness you might have three
electrons more on the left side and one
electron closer to the right side giving
the left side a slightly negative charge
in the right side a slightly positive
charge and because opposites attract the
next atom of beryllium its electrons are
going to shift into its similar pattern
with a little more on the left a little
less on the right giving it this
slightly negative slightly positive
charge it’s gonna do the same thing to
the next atom and so on and so on so
eventually you end up this huge web of
slightly positive slightly negative
atoms that overall I’ll have neutral
charges this is London dispersion or
more broadly Van der Waals forces it’s
one of the three types of intermolecular
forces the other two are a little bit
stronger but this vent a London
dispersion is found in all atoms so if
you were going to use these really weak
intermolecular forces to adhere to
something you probably want to increase
the surface area of content
so with the little species like insects
and mites that all use a similar dry
adhesive model for sticking to things
they do is they have little bumps and
ridges in their toes and their feet so
then when they go to stick to things
fair sticking with a greater surface
area thing about geckos it’s if you just
think about the size difference these
geckos their magnitudes larger than
mites so they take this idea of
expanding surface area and they kind of
run wild with it so instead of being
flat or having a few bumps and ridges
their toes end up looking a lot more
like a the head of a toothbrush so they
have millions of these microscopic
little folds on every one of their toes
creating these little bristle like
structures that are called set a and set
a they’re kind of beam like cantilever
they’re angled slightly anchored at one
end and at the end they split off into a
hundred to a thousand more of these
little tiny bristles and these little
tiny ones at the end have little
triangle heads so I never wanted these
toes when they go and they set their
foot down they drag it slightly on the
surface squishing all these billions of
little bristles between their toe and
surface allowing the Vander Waals force
to occur between their toe and surface
and just through the sheer number of
Seti that are present on their toes
they’re able to use this really weak
force to stick to something which if you
think about it’s just it’s incredible to
think about and through the research and
the study of this scientists have found
some incredible applications and they’ve
been able to create synthetic settei
that mimic the same structures as those
found on a geckos toe now they have
three really important properties
they’re very sticky very strong they’re
self-cleaning so like a geckos toe as
you use them and actually knocks the
dust and dirt particles loose so they
actually get cleaner the more that use
them instead of dirtier and then the
last one is that they’re a dry adhesive
meaning unlike white adhesive like
capillary action there’s no water
molecules involved so the first factor
the really stickiness part
first thing everybody always thinks of
is gecko tape so there’s a team at
University of Massachusetts Amherst they
created something called geckskin which
basically gecko tape and at one index I
it’s not very big it’s able to support
over 700 pounds which is just massive
being able to you imagine being able to
use that you’re in your home you could
hang things with it or engineering or in
construction with the next one with the
self-cleaning aspect there’s been a team
at MIT in 2008 they created a
biodegradable dry adhesive bandage which
they propose could be used in both
internally and externally and surgeries
to seal wounds and because of the
self-cleaning factor it can be used to
minimally invasive procedures or it
could be folded up really small inserted
through small incisions and then
unfolded once it’s inside and still
being able to do its job and with the
last aspect with the dry adhesive part
there’s been a lot of propositions
looking into how these could be applied
in critical environments like space or
in vacuums wear white adhesives would
evaporate and fail and just so much has
come out of just study just starting
with from Keller Adams team looking at
just a couple species in his little
geckos and how this has had mass could
in the future have massive impacts in
our everyday lives so much the time
science is about big ideas the rapid
expansion of the universe the complex
process of converting between oxygen and
carbon dioxide and maintaining an
equilibrium across the globe the
evolution of modern-day species from
single-celled organisms to complex
multi-celled organisms capable of speech
and thought and everything we’ve
discussed here today with the geckos
it’s part of a field which concerns
itself with the complete opposite
nanotechnology is the construction and
research of things at the nano scale to
give you a little bit of context one
nanometer is one-billionth small
than a meter which is just unfathomably
small for most of us and it’s a rapidly
expanding interdisciplinary fields that
has done so much in really what’s a
pretty short period of time where
they’ve been able to do things with the
new technology and I had the opportunity
to hear a talk at MSU last spring by a
researcher whose team had created these
little tiny robots modeled after after
water bugs which could be released into
contaminated water sources and then
filter at the water and then they
themselves be filtered out there’s tons
of stuff happening with carbon nanofiber
twos which are one ten thousandth the
thickness of a human hair but made out
of the same thing in the graphite of
your pencil and they can be used in the
electrodes of batteries to create strong
or longing lasting batteries again in a
biomedical engineering context to refuse
bone structures or release antibiotics
as they break down in environmental
sciences to clean up oil spills there’s
just so much happening with
nanotechnology and it’s just an
incredible fields so I’d like to take a
step back for a moment and thank all of
you for listening me talk I’ve been
going on for nine or ten odd minutes now
and I usually don’t get this far about
geckos in science about some one time
made a shot off so thank you
I understand geckos aren’t everybody’s
thing but the thing is everybody has a
thing highly specialized research is so
important there’s a team the grant
couple that have been studying would
have been come – known as Darwin’s
finches on one of the smaller Galapagos
Islands from 1973 to 2012 that’s almost
40 years and what they’ve been able to
do just this one couple in observing
these finches and documenting everything
from the number of individuals to their
wingspan to their beak size is been
incredible they’ve been able to observe
some of Darwin’s basic principles
of evolution in action there was a
drought one year which influenced the
size of seeds that were available for
the birds to eat and they were able to
document significant long-term changes
in the size of the birds beaks and it
just did so much for that field and our
future it’s built on this highly
specialized research and like I said
everybody has a thing for me it’s geckos
for the grant couple it was finches for
you I don’t know what it is maybe
there’s one specific type of flower that
just really really interests you roses
or maybe it’s circuit boards I don’t
know that’s up to you to go out there
and figure out so I said our future it’s
it’s built on this highly specialized
research and it’s waiting for us so why
not be part of it thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
this here is my friend Grayson he’s a
crested gecko he weighs about 20 grams
fits in the palm of your hands
his ancestors come from the island of
New Caledonia and I have had him since
my sophomore year of high school I got
him a reptile show up in Lansing in that
same year I had the opportunity to do an
independent research project for my
final and ap at biology on any topic of
my choosing as long as I convinced my
teacher was brain related to biology and
I chose to investigate what it is that
makes these geckos so sticky so if
you’re not familiar with geckos crested
geckos are one of 60% of gecko species
that are able to adhere to just about
any surface whether it’s man-made or
natural including things like glass
using the adhesive pads and their toes
and the applications of this as the
science of tests have been studying it
it’s just incredible thinking how the
study of these little tiny geckos could
affect the way you live your everyday
life or the way surgeries are done in
the future so scientists have been
looking into this since the late 1900s
there’s been a lot of theories proposed
along the way including a wet adhesion
model that has to do with capillary
action some theories with a suction cup
model some ideas that had to do with the
chemical makeup of their toes and the
actual answer was found in 2002 by a
research team headed by Keller autumn
from the University I’m alright the name
escapes me at the moment but it included
from Lewis and Clark including
scientists from UC Berkeley UC at Santa
Barbra and Stanford and what the Veii
found is that these geckos are able to
adhere to these surfaces through the
amplification of weak van der Waals
forces I understand a lot of you don’t
come from scientific backgrounds so that
statement probably med probably meant
even less to you than everything I’ve
said so far so to give it some context
we’re going to take a step back to
everyone’s favorite general chemistry so
hopefully you remember at least that
everything
in our world is made up of atoms and
molecules atoms mean the basic building
blocks for a universe things like
nitrogen oxygen phosphorus carbon all
those good things and atoms are
comprised of smaller subatomic particles
called electrons neutrons and protons
protons carry a positive charge or
located in the center of the atom in the
nucleus with the charges neutrons and
then electrons little tiny electrons
carrying their negative charge are
orbiting somewhere outside the nucleus
now we like to make all these models and
rules saying there’s two electrons
located in this discrete orbital this
distance from the nucleus and there’s
eight electrons and this next discrete
orbital but think about these electrons
they don’t actually care about all these
rules we make and they kind of do
whatever they want so while we can say
there’s a high probability that they’re
going to be found in this area at any
given moment they really could be
wherever they want so take an atom a
beryllium for example it has four
protons located in the center and four
negative electrons outside giving an
overall neutral charge so just in any
given moment because of this factor of
Ramnath randomness you might have three
electrons more on the left side and one
electron closer to the right side giving
the left side a slightly negative charge
in the right side a slightly positive
charge and because opposites attract the
next atom of beryllium its electrons are
going to shift into its similar pattern
with a little more on the left a little
less on the right giving it this
slightly negative slightly positive
charge it’s gonna do the same thing to
the next atom and so on and so on so
eventually you end up this huge web of
slightly positive slightly negative
atoms that overall I’ll have neutral
charges this is London dispersion or
more broadly Van der Waals forces it’s
one of the three types of intermolecular
forces the other two are a little bit
stronger but this vent a London
dispersion is found in all atoms so if
you were going to use these really weak
intermolecular forces to adhere to
something you probably want to increase
the surface area of content
so with the little species like insects
and mites that all use a similar dry
adhesive model for sticking to things
they do is they have little bumps and
ridges in their toes and their feet so
then when they go to stick to things
fair sticking with a greater surface
area thing about geckos it’s if you just
think about the size difference these
geckos their magnitudes larger than
mites so they take this idea of
expanding surface area and they kind of
run wild with it so instead of being
flat or having a few bumps and ridges
their toes end up looking a lot more
like a the head of a toothbrush so they
have millions of these microscopic
little folds on every one of their toes
creating these little bristle like
structures that are called set a and set
a they’re kind of beam like cantilever
they’re angled slightly anchored at one
end and at the end they split off into a
hundred to a thousand more of these
little tiny bristles and these little
tiny ones at the end have little
triangle heads so I never wanted these
toes when they go and they set their
foot down they drag it slightly on the
surface squishing all these billions of
little bristles between their toe and
surface allowing the Vander Waals force
to occur between their toe and surface
and just through the sheer number of
Seti that are present on their toes
they’re able to use this really weak
force to stick to something which if you
think about it’s just it’s incredible to
think about and through the research and
the study of this scientists have found
some incredible applications and they’ve
been able to create synthetic settei
that mimic the same structures as those
found on a geckos toe now they have
three really important properties
they’re very sticky very strong they’re
self-cleaning so like a geckos toe as
you use them and actually knocks the
dust and dirt particles loose so they
actually get cleaner the more that use
them instead of dirtier and then the
last one is that they’re a dry adhesive
meaning unlike white adhesive like
capillary action there’s no water
molecules involved so the first factor
the really stickiness part
first thing everybody always thinks of
is gecko tape so there’s a team at
University of Massachusetts Amherst they
created something called geckskin which
basically gecko tape and at one index I
it’s not very big it’s able to support
over 700 pounds which is just massive
being able to you imagine being able to
use that you’re in your home you could
hang things with it or engineering or in
construction with the next one with the
self-cleaning aspect there’s been a team
at MIT in 2008 they created a
biodegradable dry adhesive bandage which
they propose could be used in both
internally and externally and surgeries
to seal wounds and because of the
self-cleaning factor it can be used to
minimally invasive procedures or it
could be folded up really small inserted
through small incisions and then
unfolded once it’s inside and still
being able to do its job and with the
last aspect with the dry adhesive part
there’s been a lot of propositions
looking into how these could be applied
in critical environments like space or
in vacuums wear white adhesives would
evaporate and fail and just so much has
come out of just study just starting
with from Keller Adams team looking at
just a couple species in his little
geckos and how this has had mass could
in the future have massive impacts in
our everyday lives so much the time
science is about big ideas the rapid
expansion of the universe the complex
process of converting between oxygen and
carbon dioxide and maintaining an
equilibrium across the globe the
evolution of modern-day species from
single-celled organisms to complex
multi-celled organisms capable of speech
and thought and everything we’ve
discussed here today with the geckos
it’s part of a field which concerns
itself with the complete opposite
nanotechnology is the construction and
research of things at the nano scale to
give you a little bit of context one
nanometer is one-billionth small
than a meter which is just unfathomably
small for most of us and it’s a rapidly
expanding interdisciplinary fields that
has done so much in really what’s a
pretty short period of time where
they’ve been able to do things with the
new technology and I had the opportunity
to hear a talk at MSU last spring by a
researcher whose team had created these
little tiny robots modeled after after
water bugs which could be released into
contaminated water sources and then
filter at the water and then they
themselves be filtered out there’s tons
of stuff happening with carbon nanofiber
twos which are one ten thousandth the
thickness of a human hair but made out
of the same thing in the graphite of
your pencil and they can be used in the
electrodes of batteries to create strong
or longing lasting batteries again in a
biomedical engineering context to refuse
bone structures or release antibiotics
as they break down in environmental
sciences to clean up oil spills there’s
just so much happening with
nanotechnology and it’s just an
incredible fields so I’d like to take a
step back for a moment and thank all of
you for listening me talk I’ve been
going on for nine or ten odd minutes now
and I usually don’t get this far about
geckos in science about some one time
made a shot off so thank you
I understand geckos aren’t everybody’s
thing but the thing is everybody has a
thing highly specialized research is so
important there’s a team the grant
couple that have been studying would
have been come – known as Darwin’s
finches on one of the smaller Galapagos
Islands from 1973 to 2012 that’s almost
40 years and what they’ve been able to
do just this one couple in observing
these finches and documenting everything
from the number of individuals to their
wingspan to their beak size is been
incredible they’ve been able to observe
some of Darwin’s basic principles
of evolution in action there was a
drought one year which influenced the
size of seeds that were available for
the birds to eat and they were able to
document significant long-term changes
in the size of the birds beaks and it
just did so much for that field and our
future it’s built on this highly
specialized research and like I said
everybody has a thing for me it’s geckos
for the grant couple it was finches for
you I don’t know what it is maybe
there’s one specific type of flower that
just really really interests you roses
or maybe it’s circuit boards I don’t
know that’s up to you to go out there
and figure out so I said our future it’s
it’s built on this highly specialized
research and it’s waiting for us so why
not be part of it thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
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