Gecko hair. It’s one of the stickiest substances known to man.
Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have developed some synthetic gecko tape by creating arrays of carbon nanotubes on flexible polymer tape. Based on the tiny structures found on the foot of a gecko lizard, these pieces of tape can support shear stress four times higher than the gecko foot and even sticks to Teflon! Another nifty property is that this tape can be easily pulled off perpendicular to the surface, but not parallel to it. The bond is about 10 pounds per square centimeters, which is quite a lot for something so small!
Since the gecko tape is reusable and won’t dry out, the nanotube-based gecko tape could be used in a variety of applications, such as microelectronics, robotics, and space exploration.