Self-filling bottle prototype

Ed Yong links to several interesting reports, among them this one:"The Namib Desert beetle lives in an area that only gets half an inch of rainfall per year, and so it draws 12 percent of its weight in water from the air to quench its thirst. NBD Nano co-founder Deckard Sorensen was inspired by the beetle to the point that he conceptualized a self-filling water bottle, which he hopes to bring to the market by 2014.

Every morning, the beetle climbs to the top of a sand dune, faces away from the wind, and ensures that water condenses in hydrophilic areas of its back. The water then flows to a storage area in the beetle.

To mimic nature, Sorenson layered a surface with hydrophilic and hydrophobic coatings, used a fan to pass air over the surface, and managed to get water to condense. This eventually led to the design of a conceptual self-filling water bottle."