DailyDirt: Watch Out! Here Comes The Spider-Man...

Comic book superheroes have all kinds of incredible abilities. There are a few wall-crawling heroes, but the wall-climbing ability of a "Gecko Man" hasn't really captured as many fans as Spider-Man has. A bite from a radioactive spider might not be the most realistic way to obtain the power to climb walls with ease, but science also suggests that there needs to be a bit more than "spider" or "gecko" power for a person to crawl up a wall. Look on the wall! It's Velcro Man? Vacuum-Assisted Man?

• Gecko feet rely on van der Waals forces to stick to surfaces so that they can climb smooth vertical walls. However, these forces are too weak to support animals much bigger than geckos without comically large feet. Spiders and insects are small enough to take advantage of the gecko effect, but humans would need a size 114 shoe (or about 80% of the front side of our body area) to climb up a wall. [url]
• Some engineers who really wanted to build something to climb walls made a vacuum-powered contraption to scale a wall like a spider-man. It's not exactly a stealthy way to move up a wall, but if you don't mind sounding like a leaf blower.... [url]
• You can also just rent a velcro wall (and wear a velcro suit) if you just want to "stick" to a wall. You might remember David Letterman stuck to a wall of industrial-strength velcro -- but he couldn't really move up or down the wall on his own. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

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