Kitchen cutting boards are hotspots for bacteria, especially when used for raw meat. And once bacteria accumulate, they can be difficult to fully remove, even from stainless steel cleaned by the best antibacterial cleaners, compromising the safety of food preparation—raising the risk of illnesses such as gastroenteritis. And chemical antibiotics in cleaning products have their own downsides, such as disrupting positive bacteria on the skin and other adverse results. When researchers examined how nature has evolved to resist bacterial colonization, they turned to shark skin and cicada wings, both of which have superhydrophobic, self-cleaning, antifogging, and antimicrobial properties that have already informed other improvements to medical devices. Using lasers, the team created surfaces that mimicked these structures, with micro- and nanoscaletextures that correspond to specific shapes of bacterial cells, making it significantly harder for microbes to adhere to surfaces.
