Scientists have known for years that Mars once had liquid water on its surface, and they have many contemporary examples of frozen water ice on the Red Planet. But this Keep reading
Month: September 2024
Healing Soap Films
As fragile as a soap bubble seems, these films have remarkable powers of self-healing. The animation above shows a falling water droplet passing through a soap film without bursting it. Keep reading
Phytoplankton Bloom
This incredible false-color satellite image shows a cyanobacteria phytoplankton bloom in the Baltic Sea. The image is roughly 900 km across and is beautifully detailed. Check out the full resolution Keep reading
Sandscapes
Many of us have played with sand art–the rotating frames filled with water, sand, and air. In this video, Shanks FX demonstrates some of the realistic and surrealistic landscapes you Keep reading
Self-Pouring Fluids
Non-Newtonian fluids are capable of all kinds of counter-intuitive behaviors. The animations above demonstrate one of them: the tubeless or open siphon. Once the effect is triggered by removing some Keep reading
Miniature Bursting Bubbles
Fizzy drinks like soda or champagne contain dissolved carbon dioxide which forms bubbles when the pressure inside its container is released. The tiny bubbles rise to the surface where the Keep reading
The Inverted Glass Harp
You may be familiar with the glass harp, the instrument created by rubbing the rim of a partially-filled wine glass. But did you know that you can create the same Keep reading
Printing in Glass
A group at MIT have created a new 3D printer that builds with molten glass. This allows them to manufacture items that would difficult, if not impossible, to create with Keep reading
Io’s Magma Ocean
Jupiter’s moon Io is the most volcanically active world in our solar system. The energy that drives its geological activity comes from tidal forces the moon experiences from Jupiter and Keep reading
The Angle of Repose
[original media no longer available] Granular materials like sand tend to form heaps when poured. The steepness of the heap at rest is described by the angle of repose, which Keep reading