If your illicit childhood superhero dream was to become Wonder Woman – a Niagara Falls-maned, random scraps of cloth-clad Glamazon possessed of dubious ‘super powers’ and a chronic tic for Vogue photo shoot posing – then your ambition CAN be realized (with an improvised costume and when no one else is at home). But if you’ve always harboured hopes of becoming Spiderman – complete with his creepy-crawly knack for casually clambering up walls and conducting Peeping Tom misdemeanors with impunity – a new study will send your dream crashing to the ground.

According to the merciless paper released in the journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’, an adult human would need to have adhesive pads covering about 80% of their front simply to stick to a wall (never mind mobility) – in other words, you can ‘fogeddabouddit’.

Alternatively, if a human being were to follow the gecko’s lead and rely entirely on adhesive pads on the feet for sticking power, each foot would need to be about 1 metre long and 40 centimetres wide – again, it ain’t gonna happen, bro.

The comic book-inspired findings emerged as a circus freak sideshow for a more serious study looking at ‘sticky’ animals as part of an exploration into the possibility of developing effective bio-adhesives for humans.

For the research, one ‘Dr Clemente’ and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology examined 225 species of climbing animals, ranging from the smallest mites to the largest geckos. They found that the percentage of an animal’s body surface covered by adhesive pads increased as the animal’s weight increased (speaking of superheroes: thanks, Captain Obvious!).

For a mite, just 0.02% of its body is adhesive pads. Spiders need about 0.92% coverage to stick to a surface, while 4.3% of the gecko’s body surface is gluey.

“To become Spiderman, you are going to have to follow this pattern,” Dr Clemente said. “Essentially, you’ll have to be a sticky pad from your toes to the top of your chest. It isn’t going to work – if you go to hug someone it’s going to be a real mess.”

Not so fast there, Dr Clemente. If you’re a loser with sticky pads across your entire front, you wouldn’t have anyone to hug in the first place.

Based on an article published in www.KindMeal.my