A regular and superhydrophobic surface The drop on the left lays on the surface while the drop on the right actually bounces. Image is from high speed video (from Nokia)

It  happens to most of us, a fumble and whoops the phone, ipod, something goes into a puddle, a pool, yikes the toilet.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have our gizmos waterproof?  There are a lot of different ways to do that, but making things superhydrophobic might help protect them from getting damaged.  Something that is hydrophobic repels water and that is also what is used to make fabrics stain resistant.  Scientists from Nokia have followed the lead found in nature creating a surface that water bounces off of.  In nature plants like the lotus and animals like the Namib beetle have nanometer-sized structures that repel water.  So now scientists by replicating those structures figure it might be a way to protect your cell phone from an errant dip into the pool.

To see superhydrophobic surfaces in action there is a neat video