Cicadas could hold the secret to self-cleaning surfaces—new study
Credit: Fotoz by David G/Shutterstock 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 train (modeled on kingfishers’ long narrow beak). Cicadas inspired my team’s recent research into self-cleaning