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Sydney, May 17 (IANS) In the barren landscape of Namib desert, water is scarce and the few forms of life that survive are highly adaptable -- none more so than the Namib Desert Beetle, an insect that has developed a unique method of harvesting water.The Namib desert, stretching along the Atlantic coast of south west Africa, is not only believed to be the oldest desert on earth, but is one of the world's most arid and driest with only 20 mm of annual rainfall.One of the few sources of moisture in the Namib is a fast-moving fog that comes off the Atlantic Ocean in the morning when temperatures are low.The Namib Desert Beetle (genus Stenocara) makes use of this slim opportunity by converting the minute particles of water in the fog into beads of drinking water.This clever trick, first explained by Oxford zoologist Andrew Parker in 2001, has prompted scientists to look for ways of creating synthetic surfaces that mimic the beetle's body technology and capture water from the atmosphere.Until now, nobody has succeeded in making a material that can be produced on a scale large enough to be commercially viable.But a team from the University of Sydney, led by chemical engineer Andrew Harris and chemist Chiara Neto, believe they are on the brink of a breakthrough using cheap and readily available materials.Their research, opens up a potential new way of easing droughts, by capturing drinking water from the humid air in coastal areas.On humid days, there is a surprising amount of water in the atmosphere and to tap into it, the Sydney researchers are experimenting with two polymer films that mimic the beetle's body.Neto says the results of lab tests are encouraging. 'We have been able to collect a few hundred drops of water on a surface of a square centimetre or less. So we could have many billions of drops on a large polymer sheet that's exposed to the wind.'It's not something that will ever replace dams, but it's a system that might integrate with our other methods of water collection,' Neto said, according to a University of Sydney release.
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