jonesmartinez asks: As a cyclist, I’m curious about drafting. How fast do I need to be going for there to be a measurable benefit? Additionally, often in a time trial Keep reading
Month: October 2024
Martian Lava Coils
NASA’s HiRISE spacecraft has sent back images of lava coils left on the surface of Mars. These features form when lava flows of different speeds move past one another; they’re Keep reading
Why Walking with Coffee is Tough
Almost everyone is familiar with the problem of coffee or tea sloshing over the sides of a mug as one walks, but this may be the first time researchers have Keep reading
Egg Spinning
Spin a hard boiled egg in a puddle of milk and you get a sprinkler. But how? The science starts at the surface. When the egg spins, the fluid touching Keep reading
“Compressed” Outtakes
Bubbles, viscosity, diffusion, capillary action, and ferrofluids all feature in the artistic experiments of Kim Pimmel. Be sure to check out his previous film featured here. (Video credit: Kim Pimmel)
Moving Droplets with Electric Fields
Many microfluidic devices employ techniques that manipulate droplet motion for applications like sorting, manufacturing, or precisely controlling chemical reactions at a small scale. The video above shows the oscillations of Keep reading
The Pitch Drop Experiment
Sometimes everyday materials are more fluid than they seem. In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland started what is now the longest continuously running laboratory experiment when Keep reading
Icing on Airplane Wings
Icing on airplane wings remains little understood and a major hazard. These photos show examples of ice formation along the leading edge of a swept wing. If an aircraft flies Keep reading
Breaking Water with Sound
Previously we saw how vibration could atomize a water droplet, breaking it into a spray of finer droplets. Here astronaut Don Pettit shows us what the process looks like in microgravity using Keep reading
Surface Tension Floats Coins
Surface tension arises from intermolecular forces along the interface of a fluid, but despite its molecular origins, it can have some substantial macroscopic effects. Here researchers demonstrate how surface tension Keep reading