Watery adaptation: The structure and shape of lotus leaves growing on water (left) and above it (right) is influenced by mechanical forces. (Courtesy: F Xu/Fudan University) When the leaves of the ...

A lotus grows in ponds and lakes where the water can be brown with silt, algae, and decaying plants. Yet the leaves often look freshly washed. Water beads up, r ...

Many plants are extremely water-repellent owing to their rough textures, which can trap air to provide a waterproof cushioning. In some cases, plant leaves are so repellent that no droplets can stick ...

Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have successfully created a material that can absorb virtually all light that the human eye can see. And they used a lotus leaf to do it. Metamaterials ...

Bioengineers have harnessed the lotus effect to develop a system for culturing cancer cell clusters that can shed light on hard-to-study tumor properties. The new zinc oxide-based culturing surface ...

It’s not a new medicine. It’s not a new procedure. Instead, the lotus leaf teaches us how to create nanoscopic surfaces that repel bacteria, viruses, and other dangerous microbes, and this technology ...

Ever since the discovery of the lotus effect in the early 1970s, researchers have designed and tested superhydrophobic surfaces with potential applications in self-cleaning, low-drag, anti-icing, and ...

Splattered insects may seem like the least of your worries when you're tearing through the air at more than 500 mph (800 km/h), but for those working with Boeing's ecoDemonstrator 757 they present a ...

If you're designing a plastic for applications such as food packaging, you want it to stay clean but you don't want it to stick around for centuries once discarded. A new lotus-leaf-inspired material ...

Scientists finally understand how the lotus plant keeps itself clean and dry. It took an ultra high speed camera, a powerful microscope and an audio speaker to unlock a secret that has puzzled ...

In Buddhism, the lotus symbolizes purity of the body and mind due to its ability to rise above muddy waters and bloom. Himapan lotus-leaf painting classes has made it possible to bring the beauty of ...