Biomimicry & Chihuly

Todd worked all day today (Saturday)... so Connie (a neighbor's girlfriend) and I drove up to north GA mountains to go to a pond store. Todd & I were there last weekend for my company retreat / checked out the store & found a sale on Lotus plants. We have been wanting a lotus for awhile. The leaves have this coating on them that repels water. You can drop a handful of water on a leaf and it will hold it & eventually tip over / spill out. It's fun to play with.

Ok. Here's something that I think is absolutely AMAZING. Scientists are studying the Lotus leaf to learn how it repels water so well. They are applying this information to products (Georgia Tech researchers are making a coating for solar panels so that they don't get dirty or scummy and eventually degrade the ability to collect solar energy. This technology will be applied to building glass so that building owners won't have to hire window washers to scale up high-rise buidlings to clean windows. I bet that eventually car paints will be made out of this coating so that you don't have to wash them?) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_effect


There's a movement called Biomimicry that studies nature to emulate properties (check out http://www.biomimicry.net/ for information.) The Lotus leaf research falls into that category. Scientists are studying geckos feets because they're stickier than anything else. Some carpet manufacturers are looking at using this technology to make carpets stick to the floor without using adhesives. So so cool! Check out the biomimicry website if you can. You won't be disappointed!


The Lotus plant that we bought today will have a yellow bloom on it when it eventually flowers. We also bought this Arrowhead plant that has graceful stems. Todd says that I like it because it looks like a Chihuly (blown glass) piece of art. Honestly - it does. It looks sort of like this one's stems: http://www.chihuly.com/ikebana/garden009.html

I'm rambling, but one of our FAVORITE art exhibits was the Chihuly "Gardens in Glass" exhibit that we saw when we travelled to Chicago. Ever since then, we've been huge fans of his plant pieces. (the baskets & bowls are cool, but the plant pieces - set amongst real plants and flowers is absolutely breathtaking. Check out one of his garden exhibits - if you ever get the chance.)

One last thing that we bought today: a set of 4 little kids chairs -- those old-timey school chairs. I have a thing for chairs (Todd says we have too many)... but they're really unique and I got the set for 20 bucks. I will probably paint them & stick them in the kid's room around an art table or something. (one day!)

I'm going to run. I'll check back in a day or two.

C