Though we often think of the Earth as changing slowly, some events are so catastrophic that they change the landscape irrevocably. Some 15,000 years ago, a massive lake covered what Keep reading
Paddling Pathlines
Rainbow lines cut through the darkness in photographer Stephen Orlando’s images of a kayak in motion. Equipped with an LED-lined paddle, Olympic kayaker Adam van Koeverden paddled along the waterfront Keep reading
Instabilities on Instabilities
The world of fluid instabilities is a rich one. Combine fluids with differing viscosities, densities, or flow speeds and they’ll often break down in picturesque and predictable manners. Here, researchers Keep reading
Surfactants and Waves
In the ocean, waves often curl over and trap air, becoming plunging breakers. How do surfactants like soap or oil affect this process? That’s the question behind this video, where Keep reading
Möbius-Like Liquid Crystals
Möbius strips are nonintuitive objects. They appear multi-dimensional but are single-sided. Such topologies show up in other systems, too. Here we see a liquid crystal where molecular alignments, along with Keep reading
Sedimentation After Flooding
The new year brought California a series of atmospheric rivers that poured record amounts of water onto drought-stricken lands. While the precipitation refreshed snowpacks and reservoirs, much of it washed Keep reading
“FLOW”
We live in a world of fluids. We breathe them, move through them, and have them move in us. “FLOW” is a celebration of that pervasive motion, animated from hand-drawn Keep reading
A Bubble’s Path
Centuries ago, Leonardo da Vinci noticed something peculiar about bubbles rising through water. Small bubbles followed a straight path, but slightly larger ones swung back and forth or corkscrewed upward. Keep reading
Leidenfrost Explosion
When a water drop hits a surface that’s much hotter than its boiling point, part of it will vaporize immediately. Depending on the temperature, this Leidenfrost effect can be a Keep reading
The Chicxulub Impact’s Tsunami
66 million years ago an asteroid struck offshore of what is now Chicxulub near the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The impact and its aftermath are widely credited with a mass Keep reading