Forget discrete droplets. This is how sweat really forms - Science News

We’re sharing this article early to provide faster access to peer-reviewed, accepted research. It is citable and carries a permanent DOI. This version is subject to further edits and will be replaced automatically by the final Version of Record. All legal disclaimers apply. AbstractDroplets would move following the designed wettability gradient on the surface, toward the position with high surface energy, which is vital for various applications like ink printing, biological detection, and water collection. Anomalously, here we have found that the core of the overlaid droplet shows anti-wettability-gradient movement on the wettability boundary. The core droplet would perform different directional motions after the impact on the same established surface, depending on the impact dynamics and the composition ratio of the overlaid droplet. The macroscopic motion preference of the overlaid droplet is related to the wetting preference of the overlayer on the heterogeneous surface. Competitive wetting/dewetting of different components of the overlayer droplet induces a special shuttle motion of the core droplet.

image: The tiny, watery droplets pictured above can interconnect to form “neuromorphic tissues,” networks inspired by the systems the brain uses to process information, much like silicon chips, but at a far lower energy cost. UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Inside the human brain, billions of individual neurons connect to form a vast network capable of rapidly processing information and electrical signals. A team of researchers and engineers at Penn State is taking inspiration from these natural computers to build soft networks of water-based droplets, connected by membranes like those found in the walls of living cells. Their networks lay the foundation for a new kind of soft computer built for wet environments, capable of sensing and processing information with ions much like silicon chips do with electrons, but at far lower energy cost.