Miraculous Gecko

Read it all please.

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The tips of the gecko's toes are covered with thin leaves of skin, just like the pages of a book. Every leaf, in turn, is covered in a special tissue known as setae, hair-like protuberances, whose ends are divided into thousands of microscopic tips.

On the gecko's toe, an area the size of a pinhead contains an average of 5,000 micro-hairs. That means each of the animal's feet contains around half a million hairs.

Every single hair consists of between 400 and 1,000 protrusions, all located in such a way as to face the animal's heels. The tip of each one is about 5,000th of a millimeter thick. The millions of microscopic tips on the gecko's feet use the gravitational force of the atoms in the surface it walks on to firmly adhere to that surface.

As the gecko walks, it places the soles of its feet on the surface and pulls them slightly backwards, ensuring maximum contact between the hairs and the surface. Its hairs cling tightly to microscopic protrusions and cavities on the surface, too small to be seen with the naked eye. Thus on the molecular level, a slight gravitational attraction forms between the foot and the surface, known as the Van der Waals Force in quantum physics.

This force is also present when you place your hand on the wall, but it is very weak. If you were to view your hand at the atomic level, you would see that its surface is covered in tiny crests, and only the few atoms at the tops of these crests make actual contact with the wall. However, the thousands of spatulate tips on the gecko's feet stick to the wall with greater force.

If the gecko's toes really were covered with an adhesive (or with suction caps, as scientists once believed) then every time it lifted its feet the lizard would have to expend considerable energy to break that adhesion. According to the findings of the research team, however, in order for the gecko to lift its feet, it needs only to change the angle at which it makes contact with the wall.

The position and concentration of the micro-hairs on the gecko's feet give rise to the Van der Waals Force, which overcomes the force of gravity. When it wishes to take another step, the reptile bends the sole of its foot forward and raises it by expending a greater molecular force than that of gravity.

Clearly, the number and angle of the hairs on the creature's feet are based on sensitive engineering. Were the density of the hairs any greater, the animal would stick to the ceiling; any less, or if the hairs were located at a different angle, it would fall off.

Yet such a thing never happens. The density of the hairs that give rise to the Van der Waals force is exactly right.

If a gecko that had 2,000 hairs per square millimeter instead of 2 million, an insufficient Van der Waals force would form, and it would fall off as it attempted to walk on the ceiling. The existence of the whole elaborate hair structure would be to no avail.

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A re-upload from this user:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Kilsally

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• gecko
• iguana
• lizard
• miracle
• animal
• creation
• evolution
• God
• design
• id
• science
• lacertian
• darwin
• dawkins
• biology
• zology
• sci
• reptile
• wildlife
• insect

[RhasputinS]

This is funny due to the fact that he has not proven anything... he just said i can't figure out how this works so it must be god.. Prove me wrong, science don't work that way, you have to prove it was god, and he has said or done nothing that does that.

[HighFlyingDutchman]

if nature can't

it means

self evidently supernature exists

peace

[sy1234]

Haha, I love the way theists take credit for everything they can..

[scienceminded]

Perhaps because you don't understand it, it makes it false. NO, as you would say, phail on your part, the problem is that you are still stuck in the mindset that there are big weird jumps from fish to dogs and the like, in reality many things would evolve at once, for instance, a tetrapods' offspring would gradually gain longer and stronger arm bones and muscles to support its weight, more vertebrae in its neck, a a ribcage better at bearing weight etc. but each is due to selective pressure.

[arjuncollins]

Let me just say this is completely wrong. I am a bio student and the anatomy of a Gecko's foot has nothing to do with "suction cups" or "popping one foot up" to unhinge itself. There are microscopic hairs called setae that have over a billion of even smaller split end hairs on the tip of each setae there are about 6 million setae on each foot times a billion. Hairs are so small that the outer electron surface of the gecko foot bonds at a molecular level with the surface. Hairs uncurl to unstick

[DoctorPlausible]

If there's soft background music while someone's talking to the camera, 9 times out of 10 they're trying to sell you garbage.

[Vyourtchenko64]

First of all gecko's have tiny bristles of hairs (not suction cups!) that use a principle called the Van der Waals force which is and I quote "forces on the nanoscale are different from those in the world above." This video isn't very accurate, by the way many people also speculate that the bristles are hydrophobic or hydrophilic

[Alansr10]

EAT THAT GECKO!!!

[odcon]

If it hasn't been figured out yet, it proves god exists? Yeeeeaaah.

[TurtleHump]

"How would he have evolved all those things at once?"

Good question... surely it's the work of jesus...

Now if only God could come down to earth and shake my hand so I know he's real we'd be set.

Oh wait no... I forget I need to have faith... Faith in the one true religion... because all other faith based religions are somehow wrong... yet... if any of you christian folk were born to muslim families you'd have surely believed that to be the true faith...

[jmillmac]

i love your comment its hard to find a bealiver these days

[Multibullets]

ROFL at what is hand does at 4:34 - 4:35

[marek0086]

what a nice surprise to hear him acknowledging our great God!