As a teenager, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. The final ascent began around midnight, and we climbed through the dark, through sunrise, and into the early morning. I remember pausing at Keep reading
Rotating Waves of Grains
Rotating drums are a popular way to explore granular dynamics. Here, researchers fill a cylinder (seen below) with heavy grains and a low-viscosity fluid, then rotate the mixture about a Keep reading
Inside a Metal Vortex
What do you get when you combine liquid gallium, a blender, and a special probe lens? Some pretty wild slow-mo video of a liquid metal vortex, courtesy of the Slow Keep reading
Neptune’s Seasonal Changes
Ice giant Neptune orbits our sun once every 165 years, meaning that each season on the planet lasts about 41 years here on Earth. Currently, the side of Neptune facing Keep reading
Escaping the Flood
Fire ants clump together into giant rafts to stay alive during floods. But these rafts won’t form with just any number of ants. Researchers found that individual ants will actually Keep reading
“Metamorphe”
A smoke-like haze drifts over surreal landscapes in the “Metamorphe” series by Reuben Wu and Jenni Pasanen. Though fluidic in appearance, these pieces are a merger between Wu’s drone light Keep reading
Swimming Together
Scientists have long pondered the possibilities of hydrodynamic benefits to the ways fish school. But most analyses of schooling have assumed a fixed spacing that’s far more orderly than what Keep reading
How Dunes Form
On its face, the idea that sand and wind can come together to form massive mountainous dunes seems bizarre. But dunes — and their smaller cousins, ripples — are everywhere, Keep reading
You’re Drunk, Toadlet
Most frogs and toads are excellent jumpers, taking off and landing with a control and grace that rivals elite athletes. Not so for the pumpkin toadlet. These species have become Keep reading
Rifts in Rafts
A raft of particles floating on water has some natural cohesion from particle attraction and capillary action. But when the raft is pulled apart, what happens? Does it break cleanly Keep reading