BLACKSBURG, Va., Feb. 26 -- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University issued the following news release:
Water droplets have a unique ability: They can leap from a surface on their own.
This can happen for a variety of reasons, such as when a surface repels water or when heat is involved, such as a water or oil droplet skittering across a hot pan.
It also happens at a very small scale. Up to this point, researchers have observed droplets up to 3 millimeters in diameter exhibiting this behavior. When droplets are larger than that, gravity prevents it from jumping.
A new study published in Nature Communicationsidentifies a previously unreported way to get a puddle of water up to a centimeter wide to jump into the air, something ...