Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers.

I can only imagine that it is a curious sight. The first curious image is fog rolling onto and across a desert. A second, desert beetles facing into whatever breeze might be pushing the fog, with their beetle heads down and their beetle rears lifted upward so the fog, water laden, is pushed along its back.

These curious beetles are the Namib Desert Beetle (Stenocara gracilip) which face the breeze from the ocean and expose the wing-cases along their backs to the incoming fog and collect water from the fog that is condensed on its wing cases. Then due to the beetle’s curious posture the water droplets flow downward to the beetle’s mouth.

In the arid Namib desert on the south west coast of Africa, plants and animals must find a means to get water to survive. This is also true of many people around the world. Using methods similar to those of the beetle, devices have been constructed so some people in arid regions can harvest water from the moisture in fog. A project in Morocco has been under development since 2005. The project won a United Nations Climate Change award for the supplying villages with water from new water taps and supply line, and also for alleviating the burden on women who had to spend hours a day in drawing and hauling water from wells to supply their homes. Similar projects have been used in other arid locales that are close to an ocean.

More recently two papers were given at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics in Seattle Washington which took place earlier this month (November 2019). One was on the capability of gathering water characteristics of a single wire in a study related to the collection capabilities of designed projects. The other paper was based on a study conducted by Hunter King, of the University of Akron in Ohio, and colleagues which investigated how the Namib Desert Beetle collects water along its back. The abstracts of these two papers may be found at http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD19/Session/Q25.7 and http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/DFD19/Session/Q30.1, respectively.

For the beetle the study shows how microscopic ridges, bumps and pits along the beetle’s hard wing case allow it to achieve an improved rate of water collection from the fog. The study included the development of 3D printed spheres with manufactured ridges, bumps, and pits of different configuration for testing in a wind tunnel. These test showed that the microscopic texture of the surface influences the behavior of the collected water droplets. In the case of the beetle these differences in the roughness and smoothness of the surface of the hard shell wing-case on the beetle’s back influenced the movement of the water droplets to the beetle’s mouth. The beetle is able to gather and consume water to enhance its survival in the arid desert. And it must be a wondrous sight to see.

It is through the investigation of different technologies that we, the people, will be able to find solutions to alleviate thirst, hunger, and illness around the world.

We, the fortunate few who have the most, should express or thanks always for what we have. We should also seek out ways to help our brothers and sisters who do not have the resources that we so often take for granted.

Art work above is a modification of picture borrowed from http://morawatersystems.com/biomimicry-the-namib-desert-beetle-a-source-of-inspiration/

Other articles include: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3949572/The-fog-catchers-Sahara-make-water-AIR-hundreds-people.html ; https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2016/09/197525/moroccan-fog-water-harvesting-project-wins-united-nations-award/ ; https://www.wired.com/2012/11/namib-beetle-bottle/ ; https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20465982