Official News page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: IVY USES NANOPARTICLES TO CLING

by Hazed

Charles Darwin was very puzzled by ivy. How, he wondered, did it manage to cling on to walls so very efficiently? He was never able to answer the question, and neither were the scientists who came after him... until now. Researchers have finally cracked the problem, and it turns out that ivy uses nanotechnology.

The stems of the plant grow rootlets, shaped like discs, which secrete a yellow goo. Now the first in-depth analysis of this secretion has been done by a team from the University of Tesessee in Knoxville, and they have discovered that it's a gel containing globules which are only about 70 nanometers across, and that's what ivy uses to stick to walls.

The molecules that make up these nanoparticles have electrical charges that give them the ability to link up to other molecules through hydrogen bonds. Each individual bond is very weak, but adding up the millions or even billions of weak bonds could create a large force - and that's how ivy stems do their thing.

Knowing how ivy clings to vertical surfaces could lead to the development of a paint to which it cannot stick, thus protecting walls from the damage the climbing plant can do.

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