Water-repellent mobile phones developed in Durham named among top university innovations

Water-repellent mobile phones are among the top technology innovations by UK universities, according to a new list.
Researchers at Durham University came up with the waterproof casing for mobile phones.Researchers at Durham University came up with the waterproof casing for mobile phones.
Researchers at Durham University came up with the waterproof casing for mobile phones.

Repellent coatings for mobiles, which were developed at Durham University, help ensure handsets are resistant to water damage.

Millions of phones and other devices are protected by super-repellent coatings invented at the university, according to University UK (UUK).

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Also featuring on the list was the development of the first computer to run a programme electronically that was stored in its memory.

Pioneering research at the University of Manchester led to the breakthrough in 1948.

The university went on to attract the great computer scientist and code-breaker Alan Turing, who developed the Manchester Mark 1 computer, which later became the Ferranti Mark 1 - the world's first commercially manufactured computer.

Following on from the invention of the television at the Royal Technical College, the precursor to the University of Strathclyde, another Scottish university developed technology which led to the device becoming flat-screened.

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Researchers at the University of Dundee in the 1970s and 1980s laid the foundations for the now-ubiquitous LCD screen.

The technology was developed by Professors Walter Spear and Peter LeComber along with students at the university. It is also used in mobile phones and other electronic devices.

The University of Leicester's submission was its development of genetic fingerprinting.

Alec Jeffreys, an academic in the university's Department of Genetics from 1977 until his retirement in 2012, discovered genetic fingerprinting, which revolutionised forensic science and law enforcement.