Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/03/scientists-have-figured-out-why-some-plant-leaves-are-unwettable.html
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A couple summer ago I found some lily pads while fishing with grandpa and showed my kid how hydrophobic they were.
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As glad as I am to see a good post on the lotus effect (because it is really cool), it’s weird to see it described with a title that suggests it’s a recent thing, when it was mostly explained in the 1970s, used with manmade materials in the 1980s, and used in commercially available coatings since the 1990s and 2000s.
Then again, I think it’d be great if there were more science articles for a non-technical audience that didn’t try to focus on a cutting edge that neither writer nor reader understand, no matter how old the material. Cool things stay interesting to learn about no matter how many other people know how they work! So carry on! Good job!
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Some to hilarious effect:
BTW, It’s not clear that the effect of pee-back paint is due to the same properties, but it’s still funny and based on the same field of inquiry.
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Hey! I used past perfect tense! I never said how far past… none of my posts are pegged to current things, so it’s all wonderful all the time, regardless of age of the wonder.
And yes, cool things are always new to someone, so I try to share my enthusiam about things the well-read regulars of the BBS are more likely to know than the casual reader.
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I get it. It just took me a bit to realize that yes, that is something I think is great to do, I’ve actually even thought about it before, I just see it so rarely it’s not my first assumption.
This has been known for quite a long time. Never wet is a lotus leaf mimetic.
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