Inspired by moth eyeballs, Prof. Robert Corn and his group have developed a gold coating that dims glare and repels water. The results have been published recently in the journals Nano Letters and ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

Additional links:

NanoLetters: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl403496a

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2014/05/02/science-is-nothing-without-serendipity/ideas/nexus/