ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Synthetic setae

Synthetic setae are like little hairs that scientists create to help things stick to surfaces. Imagine you have some really sticky tape and you're trying to stick a toy to the wall. The tape is like the setae, but scientists wanted to make even better sticky stuff for things like climbing robots or medical patches.

So, scientists made tiny little hairs that are inspired by the setae that bugs use to stick to things. They're made of special materials that help them stick, but also let go easily when you want to. These little hairs can be put on things like robot feet or medical patches to help them stick to surfaces and move around.

So, basically, synthetic setae are like really cool sticky hairs that scientists invented to help robots and medical things stick to surfaces and move around easily.