(Phys.org) —A combined team of researchers from Spain and Australia has discovered what they claim is the first known instance of a biomaterial that can kill bacteria on contact based only its physical surface structure. ...
Sometimes water spreads evenly when it hits a surface; sometimes it beads into tiny droplets. While people have noticed these differences since ancient times, a better understanding of these properties, and new ways of controlling ...
General Physics
Jul 16, 2013
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A South American butterfly flapped its wings, and caused a flurry of nanotechnology research to happen in Ohio. Researchers here have taken a new look at butterfly wings and rice leaves, and learned things about their microscopic ...
Nanomaterials
Nov 7, 2012
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Biological structures sometimes have unique features that engineers would like to copy. For example, many types of insect wings shed water, kill microbes, reflect light in unusual ways and are self-cleaning. While researchers ...
Materials Science
Apr 14, 2020
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Over the past decade, teams of engineers, chemists and biologists have analyzed the physical and chemical properties of cicada wings, hoping to unlock the secret of their ability to kill microbes on contact. If this function ...
Bio & Medicine
Jul 18, 2023
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in the patterns that natural gas makes as it swirls through a transcontinental pipeline or in the drag that occurs as a plane soars through the sky. Reducing such turbulence on say, an airplane wing, would cut down on the ...
Soft Matter
Jul 31, 2013
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Nature is inspiring scientists all the time. Some ideas are still in research, like beaver-inspired super-warm wetsuits. But others are already part of human life, like Velcro (based on burdock burrs) and the Japanese bullet ...
Materials Science
Jul 15, 2023
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A new study suggests rough surfaces inspired by the bacteria-killing spikes on insect wings may be more effective at combating drug-resistant superbugs, including fungus, than previously understood.
Bio & Medicine
Aug 29, 2023
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The buildup of ice on surfaces can cause problems in many situations: On airplane wings or on their engine turbine blades, ice can both add weight and interfere with a wing’s lift, which can make it impossible to take ...
Condensed Matter
Dec 22, 2010
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The nighttime twinkling of fireflies has inspired scientists to modify a light-emitting diode (LED) so it is more than one and a half times as efficient as the original. Researchers from Belgium, France, and Canada studied ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 8, 2013
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