Be a superhero. But not quite yet…

So you’ve seen small lizards run straight up a vertical surface, right?

Now researchers at a uni in the US have created a synthetic material that might allow humans to do the same! By mimicing the structure of the fine hairs found on the bottom of gecko’s feet, they’ve created a material that can adhere to surfaces and pull off again without leaving any residue behind, and hold a huge amount of weight at the same time. Imagine gloves made of this stuff – you’d never drop a catch in cricket or fumble a football again.

And suddenly we could all be like Spider-Man.

Target: Earth?

Its been 100 years since a meteorite exploded over Tunguska in Siberia, devastating vast tracts of (thankfully) sparsely populated forest and tundra.

But what would happen if the same event occurred today? Just last week astronomers watched a small asteroid – called TU24 – pass through space just outside the Moon’s orbit.

And in 2029 a 400 metre long chunk of rock called Apophis will pass between the Earth and the Moon – to return in 2036 with a fairly high likelihood of impacting our planet in an explosion 4 to 8 times more powerful than the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa.