American scientists have solved the riddle of the marguerites

Everyone knows the gecko in Reunion. Or rather the marguellat as they are called here. And his extraordinary ability to move upside down is attached to the ceiling.

American scientists succeeded in unraveling this mystery. It has been known for several years that the limbs of the legs of geckos are equipped with millions of groups, elastic microscopic hairs, arranged in a certain order and ending in the shape of a spoon.

This microstructure allows margoels to trace the shape of the surface they are moving on.

Researchers from NIST (American National Institute of Standards and Technology) for their part, using an X-ray microscope, discovered that the satellites and their spoons were covered with a lipid membrane one nanometer thick, one billionth of a meter.

These lipids, which protect tissues from drying out, can also play a major role thanks to their hydrophobic nature. By repelling any water molecules, they will save spoons “close contact with the surface”Tobias Wieden, a chemist at Denmark’s Aarhus University, and co-author of the study, said in a press release from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and reproduced in the journal. beautiful morning. all ‘May help geckos cling to wet surfaces’according to him.

Researchers are now studying applications of this discovery in everyday life. How about shoes that don’t slip on wet floors or gloves that can hold wet tools? However, further studies will still be necessary in order to know the benefit of this film of fat.