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Summary: Evidence for van der Waals adhesion in gecko setae
Kellar Autumn
, Metin Sitti§
, Yiching A. Liang¶
, Anne M. Peattie
, Wendy R. Hansen
, Simon Sponberg
,
Thomas W. Kenny¶
, Ronald Fearing§
, Jacob N. Israelachvili**, and Robert J. Full
Department of Biology, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219; Departments of §Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Integrative
Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720; ¶Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; and
**Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Edited by Thomas Eisner, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and approved July 9, 2002 (received for review April 29, 2002)
Geckos have evolved one of the most versatile and effective
adhesives known. The mechanism of dry adhesion in the millions
of setae on the toes of geckos has been the focus of scientific study
for over a century. We provide the first direct experimental
evidence for dry adhesion of gecko setae by van der Waals forces,
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