3 ms·
The spikes would be so small they wouldn't affect your skin cells. Viruses are magnitudes smaller than cells and your skins cells have thick, durable cell walls
by weare138 3y ago
The spikes would be so small they wouldn't affect your skin cells. Viruses are magnitudes smaller than cells and your skins cells have thick, durable cell walls to protect them. It's no different than other materials like copper and silver that also exhibit natural antiviral/antibiotic properties. A piece of polished copper would feel smooth to the touch but if you looked at it under a high power microscope the surface would appear rough and jagged like the silicon spikes.
- Retric 3y agoI wouldn’t assume the surface is going to maintain these precise nano structures after rubbing your finger across it. So yes it might feel smooth, but IMO it could also feel gritty from structures larger than a single spike breaking off. It really depending on how exactly it’s made/ what it’s applied to not just the initial shape.
- adrian_b 3y agoAnimal cells do not have any thick, durable cell walls (like the cells of plants or of fungi). Their thin membranes would be easily ripped by such silicon spikes. The durable materials, if any, can be only extracellular, like in bone tissues or cartilage tissues, where they fill spaces between and around the cells. As another poster has said, the durable, protective part of the skin is made by dead cells, which are shed and renewed. Being already dead, they would not be affected by scratches. On the other hand, eating some particles covered with such a surface with silicon spikes might be a bad idea, though the damaged cells from intestinal walls should also be eventually replaced, like those of the external skin.