{"id":31168,"date":"2016-02-19T14:03:25","date_gmt":"2016-02-19T20:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=31168"},"modified":"2016-03-02T11:34:09","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T17:34:09","slug":"spider-man-cant-do-whatever-a-spider-can-researchers-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/spider-man-cant-do-whatever-a-spider-can-researchers-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Spider-Man can’t do whatever a spider can, researchers say"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Claire Donnelly<\/strong><\/p>\n

What if instead of evading the evil Dr. Octopus by scaling the nearest wall, Spider-Man found himself stuck to every object he passed?<\/p>\n

According to some scientific researchers, that\u2019s exactly what would happen if Spider-Man\u2019s sticky pads were correctly proportioned to his body weight.<\/p>\n

In a study published in the January issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em><\/a>, researchers in the U.S., U.K. and Australia examined how certain physical features–specifically, sticky pads–change as an animal\u2019s body size changes. The study of these changes is known as allometry.<\/p>\n

For David Labonte, lead author of the study, that meant looking at a lot of gecko feet.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Labonte, a researcher in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge<\/a>, and his team collected data for 225 different climbing animals across classes, including amphibians, arachnids, insects, mammals and reptiles.<\/p>\n

Labonte said studying the way climbing animals like geckos use adhesive pads could help researchers working to develop bio-inspired adhesives, or man-made adhesives that work like gecko or insect feet.<\/p>\n

Looking at how animals change their sticky pad size as they grow could present potential solutions for how to make these adhesives stronger and more effective.<\/p>\n

Daniel Boehm, zoological manager at the Lincoln Park Zoo<\/a>, explained that many gecko species (there are over 900 different ones) are able to stick to walls thanks to small, hair-like projections on their sticky toe pads.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] a very, very remarkable adaptation,\u201d he said. \u201c[It] creates incredible biomechanical adhesion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A
A green gecko rests on some bamboo. (Tambako the Jaguar\/Creative Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boehm has worked with different gecko species, including gold-dust day geckos<\/a> and leaf-tailed geckos, though he said the zoo\u2019s current collection has only one species that uses adhesive toe pads–the Standing\u2019s day gecko<\/a> (Phelsuma standingi<\/em>).<\/p>\n

For the study, Labonte and his research team photographed larger animals\u2019 adhesive pads using a camera mounted on a microscope or scanned them digitally using a photo scanner. The team capture images of smaller animals\u2019 pads using a scanning electron microscope, which scans samples with a focused beam of electrons.<\/p>\n

To collect data on the animals\u2019 mass, researchers either weighed the living animals or calculated the weight based on the animals\u2019 length using established criteria.<\/p>\n

The study results showed \u201cextreme positive allometry.” That means the surface area required to be covered\u00a0with sticky pads increases with animal size, or a gecko\u2019s sticky pads get bigger as the gecko grows larger.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we look across all these animals, then we find that the area of the pads changes in direct proportion to the body weight,\u201d Labonte said. \u201cThat means that larger and larger animals have to use a larger and larger fraction of the surface area as adhesive pads.\u201d<\/p>\n

A gecko, for example, requires a greater percentage of its surface area to be covered with sticky pads than a small mite. According to the study, the fraction of the gecko\u2019s surface area that needs to be sticky is 200 times larger than the mite\u2019s.<\/p>\n

So are there limits to how big an animal can be that uses sticky pads?<\/p>\n

Labonte said his data indicate a size limit for animals with sticky pads but he and his team were unable to give a precise numerical value for that limit.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can only do it to a certain size,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat exactly that size is and whether there are other factors that also determine the size, we don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this is where Spider-Man comes in. Labonte and his fellow researchers extrapolated their study results to address the scientific plausibility of everyone\u2019s favorite web-slinging superhero.<\/p>\n

\"Spider-Man
Spider-Man up to his usual tricks. (txboi001\/Creative Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Assuming that Spider-Man would follow the patterns observed in the animal study, the researchers suggested that Spider-Man would need to have two-fifths of his available body surface area covered with sticky pads to be able to support his weight while climbing walls, Labonte said.<\/p>\n

And since sticky pads are only helpful if they\u2019re on the front of Spider-Man\u2019s body rather than on his back, 80 percent of his front surface area would need to be sticky.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fairly impractical,\u201d Labonte said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure whether he would be able to actually hunt any villains or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Bagley<\/a>, a comic book artist who has worked for Marvel Comics on such titles as The Amazing Spider-Man<\/em> and Ultimate Spider-Man<\/em>, said he\u2019s not concerned about the impact of this study on the comic book industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just comics,\u201d Bagley said. \u201c[Spider-Man] has spider powers \u2026 It\u2019s imagination. It\u2019s fantasy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bagley has penciled hundreds of comic books since the late 1980s, and the comic community reveres his work.\u00a0Bagley said he didn’t anticipate any fan backlash from Spider-Man\u2019s lack of scientific feasibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think fans will be disappointed,\u201d Bagley laughed. \u201cI think 99.99 percent [of them] are relatively grounded in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spider-Man\u2019s stunts are safe within the pages of comic books, but don\u2019t try climbing a wall in your Halloween costume–you\u2019ll need a lot of sticky pads.<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Spider-Man doing the scientifically impossible–sticking to walls using sticky pads located only on his hands and feet. (Cristian Bortes\/Creative Commons)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Claire Donnelly What if instead of evading the evil Dr. Octopus by scaling the nearest wall, Spider-Man found himself stuck to every object he passed? According to some scientific researchers, that\u2019s exactly what would happen if Spider-Man\u2019s sticky pads were correctly proportioned to his body weight. In a study published in the January issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":243,"featured_media":31173,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,452,29,585],"tags":[1542,1535,61,1536,1537,1533,1795,1525,1539,1524,1544,1527,737,1523,1534,1531,1532,1540,1543,192,155,1528,1521,1522,1530,1538,1526,1541],"class_list":["post-31168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-beyond-chicago","category-health-and-science","category-winter-2016","tag-adhesive-pads","tag-bagley","tag-chicago","tag-comic-book-illustrator","tag-comic-books","tag-comics","tag-daniel-boehm","tag-david-labonte","tag-extreme-positive-allometry","tag-gecko","tag-gecko-feet","tag-gecko-study","tag-health-and-science","tag-lincoln-park-zoo","tag-mark-bagley","tag-marvel","tag-marvel-comics","tag-pnas","tag-proceedings-of-the-national-academy-of-sciences","tag-promo","tag-science","tag-scientific-study","tag-spider-man","tag-spiderman","tag-standings-day-gecko","tag-sticky-pads","tag-university-of-cambridge","tag-zoology"],"yoast_head":"\nSpider-Man can't do whatever a spider can, researchers say - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/spider-man-cant-do-whatever-a-spider-can-researchers-say\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Spider-Man can't do whatever a spider can, researchers say - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Claire Donnelly What if instead of evading the evil Dr. Octopus by scaling the nearest wall, Spider-Man found himself stuck to every object he passed? 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