April 27, 2007	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 09, 1428

ROME, April 26: A new Spider-Man film swings into cinemas soon, but an Italian researcher said on Thursday he was working on a project that could lead to real-life versions of the comic book character.

Nicola Pugno, a 35-year-old researcher at the Polytechnic University of Turin, said he had worked on a form of adhesion for about 10 years that could lead to something like a spider-man suit.

Like many other researchers, he said he was using the gecko lizard as an example.

“It’s a field that can have very interesting applications in science, like in space, for example,” Pugno said. “An astronaut could use a suit with a suction-cup adhesion system.” He estimates a suit like that could be constructed in another 10 years.

The gecko’s feet are covered with tiny hairs called setae that allow for strong adhesion to different types of surfaces. Pugno is seeking to mimic the effect of the setae, though several problems remain to be worked through.

His suit, he said, was to include extremely fine, sticky filament.

“One of the problems that has arisen is the control of the adhesion, because remaining attached to a wall is not difficult,” he said. “All you have to do is attach it with superglue. But then how do you detach it and re-attach it again?” A self-cleaning mechanism also has to be developed for the system, he said.

“A gecko that walks in the sand has to clean his feet after a few steps,” he said.

Despite his work’s obvious Spider-Man similarities, Pugno said he had no particular interest in the hit movies and that science was what fascinated him.

Science fiction, he said, “leads to nothing”.

—AFP