Plants use the “lotus effect” to self-clean—water droplets simply roll off and clean the surface to reduce infestation with fungal spores, for example, as Professor Wilhelm Barthlott of the University of Bonn discovered four decades ago. But it’s not just plants that use the lotus effect—land living cyanobacteria (Hassallia byssoidea) also use extreme water repellency to protect themselves from water films and competitors.
Click here for original story, Water repellency as the first step to life on land one billion years ago
Source: Phys.org