Gecko glue is a thing

KM, look away now. (Or don't; it's not like I'm posting pictures, but watch where you're going).

I don't know which part of this is #1 for awesome. I vote ALL of it.

A team of scientists at the University of Massachusetts has developed a new, reusable adhesive based on the feet of the gecko – the lizard that licks its own eyeballs and climbs up walls. Around 60% of gecko species have adhesive toe pads and these pads were the inspiration for Geckskin – a device that can attach and detach from materials and surfaces repeatedly.

Led by professor of polymer science and engineering Al Crosby and professor of biology Duncan Irschick, the team designed Geckskin for performance – you can suspend up to 700lbs in weight with it and it can be made from everyday items such as nylon, bathroom caulking, carbon fibre or cotton. Most things adhere to it and it adheres to most things – it's like flypaper for elephants.

Crosby and Irschick say it's not about making a new material but making old materials perform in new ways. Geckskin is detachable and attachable.

Did you know geckos lick their eyeballs?! (Oh my God - are they Japanese souls trapped in reptilian bodies? Is it racist of me to say so? Cancel! Cancel!) 

I don't know which idea I like more: 'flypaper for elephants' or 'geckskin'. Actually, no contest - if there must be an elephant in the room, I'd rather it was suspended from the ceiling and rotating gently and somehow invisibly. ('Geckglue' trumps 'geckskin' though I'd like suggestions for an even better name.)

Later, the article says: "A key property of certain types of gecko is the ability to attach to any surface, release at will and be able to hold a significant amount of weight." And it made me wonder what weights a gecko carries. Seriously. It's not as if they club a prey over the head, fling them over a shoulder and head off into the nearest cave. So what weights do they have to carry? Apart from their own body weight which, I imagine, the design takes care of to not count as 'significant'.

Anyone know?

A bag full of cats

When I was pregnant, there were a battery of tests that my doc recommended, among them for a series of potential diseases that might damage the foetus. So, I obediently got them done. One of these tests came back positive: Toxoplasma Gondii. I consulted my trusty What to Expect and was horrified to discover that the thing sounded hugely dangerous. I was traumatised.

The doc recommended I re-do the test and the next one turned out negative ( though why disregard the first and accept the second? Would there be any way of finding out until it was too late?) and all manner of things were well after all.

So this Toxo thing seems like a special parasite, one that was (almost) mine. Naturally, all related reading are of interest. This piece suggests that this parasite - usually considered harmless in healthy adults and reasonably-sized children - actually can cause all kinds of changes in the brain.

She began tagging the parasite with fluorescent markers and tracking its progress in the rats’ bodies. Given the surgically precise way the microbe alters behavior, Webster anticipated that it would end up in localized regions of the brain. But the results defied expectations. “We were quite surprised to find the cysts—the parasite’s dormant form—all over the brain in what otherwise appeared to be a happy, healthy rat,” she says. Nonetheless, the cysts were most abundant in a part of the brain that deals with pleasure (in human terms, we’re talking sex, drugs, and rock and roll) and in another area that’s involved in fear and anxiety (post-traumatic stress disorder affects this region of the brain). Perhaps, she thought, T. gondii uses a scattershot approach, disseminating cysts far and wide, enabling a few of them to zero in on the right targets.

To gain more clarity on the matter, she sought the aid of the parasitologist Glenn McConkey, whose team at the University of Leeds was probing the protozoan’s genome for signs of what it might be doing. The approach brought to light a striking talent of the parasite: it has two genes that allow it to crank up production of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the host brain. “We never cease to be amazed by the sophistication of these parasites,” Webster says. 

The whole thing here.

*

Someone on Twitter said that this explains Naipaul. I give you that observation without comment.

Transit of Venus

The last one we'll see in our lifetimes.

Here.

We woke up at 5.30 to check it out, but of course the sun hadn't even risen then. Once it had, there were treelines and it's taken till now to get a glimpse.

The kid swears he can see Venus in the top left corner, but I could only see a dark red disc through a folded X-Ray (Don't try this at home, kids. It's bad for your eyes).

Now we've settled down in front of the computer, listening to dignified people from NASA singing childish songs to fill the time - transits take time - and annoying the heck out of us.

But! Transit! Of! Venus!

Zoot alors!*

__

* Guillaume le Gentil