Biomimetics

    The science of biomimetics or biomimicry is one that incorporates knowledge of the natural world, chemistry, engineering ingenuity, nanotechnology, and other diverse fields. Simply put, it is the study of tools naturally evolved into creatures bodies because they were near-optimal at their job, and their replication for use by human beings. These naturally produced materials often have interesting or profound properties, and mystified people until biomimeticists looked at their internal structure under a microscope. For instance, the toes of the gecko have extreme adhesive properties - a gecko can hang upside-down from a smooth surface like glass from a single one of their toes. This works underwater and in space, and the gecko has simply to peel its toes back to take its foot off completely clean. But how does it work?
     Unseen, at extremely small scales in the range of nanometers, small electromagnetic interactions called Van der Waals forces operate between objects that are extremely close together. A gecko's toe has strange hairy-looking rows of pads on its surface. These are actually groups of extremely fine branching appendages,  which under a powerful microscope look like a forest of fibres. This results in the normally faint Van der Waals forces between the toe and the surface becoming exponentiated, which allows the gecko to easily cling on to any surface.
     This is the experimental part of biomimetics, finding out how things work. The next part is applying it, which in this case people have been doing. A team of material scientists have replicated to some degree the gecko toe surface and are building a wall-scaling robot which, if developed correctly, could help with space-station, satellite, or ship repairs.
     Wall-climbing robots, the elasticity and strength of spider silk, the disease-inhibiting properties of shark skin; all of these and more can and will be used through biomimetics.