One of my favorite biology papers, perhaps ever, is a 2002 article by Autumn et al titled Evidence for van der Waals adhesion in gecko setae. You see, geckos run on walls, and they do it using setae, little hairs on their feet. For years, people have pondered just how that works, and in this 2002 paper, Autumn tested various hypotheses and found that van der Waals forces were to blame.
Even if you only ever had the one college (or even high school) chemistry class, that name may ring a bell. van der Waals forces, also called dispersion forces, are attractions that form between adjacent molecules based on temporary dipoles. In other words, the electrons in Molecule A happen to shift to the left, creating a net positive on the side facing Molecule B, so the electrons in Molecule B shift to match -- instant (temporary) dipole, instant (temporary) attraction.
So this seemingly obscure fact you learned in high school chemistry keeps geckos stuck to walls. I love that.
In a recent paper titled Carbon nanotube-based synthetic gecko tapes, Liehui et al have (in their words) "developed a synthetic gecko tape by transferring micropatterned carbon nanotube arrays onto flexible polymer tape based on the hierarchical structure found on the foot of a gecko lizard." In fact, it has "peeling and adhesive properties better than the natural gecko foot."
That's one less roadblock on the road to synthetic geckos. More practically, it's a demonstration that something as seemingly random as a biologist figuring out why geckos stick to walls may generate something as useful as "tape that reversibly sticks to anything."