New York, June 8 (IANS): If you have seen the movie "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol", you can not forget the scene where actor Tom Cruise scales and swings from world's tallest building Burj Khalifa in Dubai wearing adhesive gloves.
Now, come to real from reel life.
'Gecko gloves' may soon be a reality as the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing special gloves - under Z-Man project - that would let soldiers scale vertical walls.
Based on a gecko's paws, the gloves are coated with a specialised cloth called 'Geckskin'.
Impregnated with a reversible adhesive elastomer, they cling to surfaces the same way that the gecko's paws do.
"Geckos can climb on a wide variety of surfaces, including smooth surfaces like glass, with adhesive pressures of 15-30 pounds per square inch for each limb," explained researchers from Cambridge Massachusetts' Draper Laboratory who developed these gloves.
In a live demonstration, a 218-pound researcher with 50 pounds of recording gear scaled a 25-feet-tall glass wall.
"DARPA looked at gecko for inspiration in overcoming some of the manoeuvre challenges that the US forces face in urban environments," Matt Goodman, programme manager at DARPA for Z-Man project, was quoted as saying.
The Z-Man project aims to develop biologically-inspired climbing aids to enable warfighters to scale vertical walls constructed from typical building materials, while carrying a full combat load and without the use of ropes or ladders, media reports said.