Lotus Nanotech

Makarand writes "The lotus, a flowering plant native to Asia whose waxy leaves repel water droplets and particles of dirt, is teaching nanotechnologists a thing or two. Scientists at BASF have found that the lotus plant surfaces have a coating of wax crystals around 1 nm in diameter. This roughness on the nanometer scale helps the plant surface to reduce the actual contact area to 2-3% of the droplet covered area making its surfaces superhydrophobic. If the surface is slanting, the droplet rolls off, instead of sliding off, picking up small particles of dirt on the way giving a "self-cleaning" effect. BASF is now working on an aerosol spray to coat a surface with such a self-cleaning nanostructure. The self cleaning shoe might soon be a reality."

Comments

modern society isn't all that smart

[f00zbll]

About the only thing modern society can lay claim to is disregaurd for nature and progressing genocide. Just because other cultures didn't create gargantuan polution factors, spewing tons of poisons every hour doesn't make them less advanced or some how backwards. We have the british and christianity to thank for that assinine perspective. "Manifest destiney" is a great excuse to rape and pilliage everything in sight for the sake of "advancement". I'm not claiming innocence here, just pointing how incredibly stupid we have been the last 500 years. Our ancestors managed to keep the planet relatively clean for 2K years, until some idiot started the industrial revolution. The achievements of organized religions are tremendous and horrifying. One one hand we have all the homeless people they save each year. On the other end, we have the rapid degeneration and depletion of the planet's resources. Something drastic changes have to happen in the next 100 years to turn things around. At the current, mother nature is going to come up with some super bug to wipe human kind off the face of the earth.