Even more surprising: the droplets didn’t evaporate quickly, as thermodynamics would predict.
“According to the curvature and size of the droplets, they should have been evaporating,” says Patel. “But they were not; they remained stable for extended periods.”
With a material that could potentially defy the laws of physics on their hands, Lee and Patel sent their design off to a collaborator to see if their results were replicable.
I really don’t like the repeated use of the phrase “defy the laws of physics.” That’s an extraordinary claim, and it needs extraordinary proof, and the researchers already propose a mechanism by which the droplets remained stable under existing physical laws, namely that they were getting replenished from the nanopores inside the material as fast as evaporation was pulling water out of the droplets.
I recognize the researchers themselves aren’t using the phrase, it’s the Penn press release organization trying to further drum up interest in the research. But it’s a bad framing. You can make it sound interesting without resorting to clickbait techniques like “did our awesome engineers just break the laws of physics??” Hell, the research is interesting enough on its own; passive water collection from the air is revolutionary! No need for editorializing!
It also somewhat instils distrust in science IMO, goes along the “eggs were bad for our health just 10y ago” type of argument
Those Egg Council creeps got to you too, eh?
Yeah, why pretend physics are being broken when we could instead discuss the fact that we’re one step closer to having moisture farming as a profession!
Cool, just have to go to Tosche Station to pick up some power converters first.
You can waste time with your friends when your chores are done.
Recently I found a new class of passive water aggregators in my snack. I call it ,“DO NOT EAT, SILICA”
I have a long distance call from Arakis, the Fremen are on line 1…
Stillsuits incoming.
Please, the stretchy part of my sweatshirt sleeves have done this for years.
So, trees with more steps?
Trees harvest it from the ground, not the air.
Trees absorb MOST of their water through the soil, but are absolutely capable of absorbing water directly into their leaves. Google “Foliar uptake”
