Slashdot Mirror
New "Hairy" Material Is Almost Perfectly Hydrophobic
drewsup writes "Wolfgang Sigmund, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Florida, has created a material modeled after spider hairs that acts as a nearly perfect water-repelling surface. Quoting Science Daily: 'A paper about the surface, which works equally well with hot or cold water, appears in this month's edition of the journal Langmuir. Spiders use their water-repelling hairs to stay dry or avoid drowning, with water spiders capturing air bubbles and toting them underwater to breathe. Potential applications for UF's ultra-water-repellent surfaces are many, Sigmund said. When water scampers off the surface, it picks up and carries dirt with it, in effect making the surface self-cleaning. As such, it is ideal for some food packaging, or windows, or solar cells that must stay clean to gather sunlight, he said. Boat designers might coat hulls with it, making boats faster and more efficient.' Hairy glass, anyone?"
It has rabies?
Al Gore is not going to be happy.
Not to crap on your idea, but I don't think that would work. Tires are like pencil erasers. They lose material as you use them. Anything you put on the outside of a tire, that makes contact with the ground, will be rubbed off in less than a few hundred miles. For example, if you look at a new tire, it will typically have little nubs or rubber hairs all over it (these are a result of the molding process). After you drive on them for a few hundred miles, you'll see they get rubbed away/off.
New webcomic updated on Sundays: HERE
it's called "fur".
Here's the video. Fascinating stuff-- the first sample is a copper plate with copper oxide crystals coated in a material very similar to Teflon.
"We are Microsoft. You shall be assimilated. Competition is futile."
Also, since when did evolution stop? Who knows if in another 100 million years, the whales may evolve microscopic hairs.
Another well known hairy material is asbestos. Just sayin'