{"552101":{"#nid":"552101","#data":{"type":"event","title":"Tunable adhesion for life and sex: functioning mechanisms of adhesive hairs in diving beetles","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMale diving beetles use specialized adhesive setae, in spatula or circular form, to mount on female elytra during underwater courtship; co-evolution of the contact surfaces has attracted much attention since Darwin.\u0026nbsp; We for the first time directly measured and compared the performance of a single seta of each form.\u0026nbsp; While the circular setae behave like typical suckers, the spatula ones with a modified shallow sucker and channels, found only in male \u003Cem\u003ECybister\u003C\/em\u003E beetles, use the combined mechanisms of suction and viscous resistance for adhesion.\u0026nbsp; To decipher the physical mechanisms of the unusual velocity-dependent adhesion, we construct a conceptual \u201cwater-leaking model\u201d combining spatula seta\u2019s surface geometry and properties, as well as its force and deformation throughout adhesion.\u0026nbsp; Comparison between simulation and empirical results reveals three functioning mechanisms: (i) water flowing through imperfectly sealed microfluidic channels leads to velocity-dependent adhesion; (ii) stalk-pulling action increases pressure difference to compress the channel wall, triggering seal-off of the micro-channels; (iii) stalk elasticity provides buffer for energy storage, further increasing the adhesion capacity.\u0026nbsp; Such tunable adhesion mechanisms found in spatula setae not only allow the male \u003Cem\u003ECybister\u003C\/em\u003E beetles to succeed the premating courtship mount and easy release for respiration, but also provide us insights for future design of bio-inspired underwater adhesion devices.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Tunable adhesion for life and sex: functioning mechanisms of adhesive hairs in diving beetles"}],"uid":"27664","created_gmt":"2016-07-12 08:10:41","changed_gmt":"2017-04-13 21:15:25","author":"Alison Morain","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","field_event_time":{"event_time_start":"2016-08-01T16:00:00-04:00","event_time_end":"2016-08-01T17:00:00-04:00","event_time_end_last":"2016-08-01T17:00:00-04:00","gmt_time_start":"2016-08-01 20:00:00","gmt_time_end":"2016-08-01 21:00:00","gmt_time_end_last":"2016-08-01 21:00:00","rrule":null,"timezone":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"groups":[{"id":"126011","name":"School of Physics"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"166937","name":"School of Physics"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[{"id":"1795","name":"Seminar\/Lecture\/Colloquium"}],"invited_audience":[{"id":"78751","name":"Undergraduate students"},{"id":"78761","name":"Faculty\/Staff"},{"id":"174045","name":"Graduate students"}],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:amorain@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Eamorain@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}