Mimicking Nature Creates Self-Cleaning Coatings

User rating: 4.4 / 5 after 45 vote(s)

Close-up image shows water beading up on a coating modeled after the surface of lotus plant leaves. Credit: Gary Meek Georgia Tech Photo
Close-up image shows water beading up on a coating modeled after the surface of lotus plant leaves. Credit: Gary Meek / Georgia Tech Photo

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are mimicking one of Nature’s best non-stick surfaces to help create more reliable electric transmission systems, photovoltaic arrays that retain their efficiency, MEMS structures unaffected by water and improved biocompatible surfaces able to prevent cells from adhering to implanted medical devices.


Full story »
All News summaries from Physics news
All News summaries for October 13, 2006

Proposed Particle Help Explains Odd Galactic Photons

2 hours ago | User rating: not rated yet
In 2002, a satellite called INTEGRAL was launched by the European Space Agency with an instrument on board to detect and measure gamma rays from space. Four years later, it yielded some intriguing data: An unusually high ...

Electron microscopy enters the picometer scale

Jul 24, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
Jülich scientists have succeeded in precisely measuring atomic spacings down to a few picometres using new methods in ultrahigh-resolution electron microscopy. This makes it possible to find out decisive parameters ...

Revolutionary materials reflect ancient forms

Jul 24, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(PhysOrg.com) -- Although order is pleasing to the eye, it can quickly become boring. In Islamic architecture therefore, decoration often follows a strict yet aperiodic pattern. Similar structures also form ...

Shielding for ambitious neutron experiment

Jul 24, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
In science fiction stories it is either the inexhaustible energy source of the future or a superweapon of galactic magnitude: antimaterial. In fact, antimaterial can neither be found on Earth nor in space, is extremely complex ...

New Membrane Model May Unlock Secrets of Early-Stage Alzheimer's

Jul 23, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and three collaborating institutions are using a new laboratory model of the membrane surrounding neurons in the brain to study how a protein ...
Goto Archive PhysOrg Forum Goto Archive Video Goto Archive Editorials Goto Archive Free Magazines Goto Archive Newsletter

News Archive