The sponge gourd, or patola, is not only eaten in soup or misua dishes. The vegetable is also the fibrous loofah used for scrubbing dirt off one’s skin during bathing.

A new application for the versatile gourd — Luffa cylindrica — is in warfare as the Chinese military has developed a coating that makes its warplanes undetectable by space-based radar satellites.

Radar detection happens when radio waves bounce back upon hitting objects in the air like an airplane. The satellite radar’s computer then processes the signal to create images or measure motion.

Chinese scientists have used dried loofah to make a coating that absorbs electromagnetic waves, reducing the reflection of radar signals.

“The secret lies in the loofah’s natural architecture — a 3D network of interconnected cellulose fibers that, when carbonized at high temperatures, electromagnetic waves entering the material bounce around endlessly within the mazelike pores and are prevented from escaping,” the South China Morning Post reported.

If the loofah can reduce warplanes’ exposure to radar, the opposite happened when Google Maps started suggesting in July that driving through tiny Lullington village was a shortcut in Somerset, England.

Since then, cargo trucks started rolling through the narrow road of the village.

“The trouble is that it is a single-track road, so if a lorry comes down, there is nowhere to go — they can’t turn around and they can’t go back up,” Gus Colquhoun, the chair of Lullington Parish Meeting, told Daily Mail (DM).

Historic bridges, walls, homes and even cars have been damaged by lorries trying to reach nearby Frome, DM reports.

Locals have put up signs warning lorry drivers that there is no access for turning around and urging them not to follow their sat navs, according to DM.