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The leaves of this plant are what we call super hydrophobic.
我们认为这种植物的叶子超级疏水。
Lotus leaves, being super hydrophobic, don’t attract water; they repel it, in a big way.
超级疏水的荷叶不会吸引水，它们彻底排斥水。
When raindrops fall on lotus leaves, they remain spherical; they roll right off.
当雨水落到荷叶上时，它们会保持球形直接滚下来。
So for a long time, the Massachusetts scientists tried to created a coating that acted like these lotus leaves, a coating that was super hydrophobic.
所以很长时间以来，Massachusetts的科学家试着发明出一种像这些荷叶一样的涂层，一种超级疏水的涂层。
But then they began to think about the opposite extreme, could they accomplish their goal by making a coating that, instead of repelling water, actually, attracted water?
但是后来他们开始思考相反的极端，他们能不能通过制造一种吸引水而不是排斥水的涂层来达到他们的目的呢？
Well, they seem to have gotten quite far with this approach.
他们用这种方法似乎已经取得了很大的进展。
It’s really strong work, with a range of interesting consumer applications.
这是一个非常有力的产品，有一系列有趣的消费者应用产品。
It’s not costly to manufacture the coating, some car-makers are interested in applying it to their wind shields.
生产这种涂层成本并不高，一些汽车制造商对把它用到他们的挡风玻璃上有很大的兴趣。
Looks like we’ll probably see it on the markets in everyday products in the next few years.
看上去在接下来几年里，我们可能会在市场上的日常产品中见到它的身影。
