Food coloring on sterile slides will spontaneously start interacting like living cells, and Stanford researchers have figured out how.
Nate Cira, Adrien Benusiglio, and Manu Prakash discovered how the dynamic interactions of water and propylene glycol in food coloring makes inanimate droplets move in ways which mimic living cells. They also discovered that using permanent markers to draw hydrophobic barriers can also affect droplet interactions. They even got droplets to travel in specific routs under controlled conditions.
They believe the finding could have applications in semiconductor manufacturing and self-cleaning solar panels.
• Stanford researchers solve the mystery of the dancing droplets
