There’s something about the way spiders move that many of us find inherently creepy. And that something, it turns out, is fluid dynamical. Unlike humans and other vertebrates, spiders don’t Keep reading
Month: September 2024
Boiling with Sound
Ultrasonic vibrations can boil nanoscale liquid layers, according to a new simulation-based study. Above you see a layer of water initially about 2 nm thick. When the surface it’s on Keep reading
A Splat is Born
View this post on Instagram You BLOW my mind! ?? When I did my first water droplet video, I didn't think that it would become a trend in the hand Keep reading
Solar Prominence
Near the surface of the sun, the interplay of magnetic fields and plasma flow creates solar prominences that appear to dance. The prominence shown here was recorded in 2012 by Keep reading
Bubbling
Many chemical reactions produce gases as a stream of bubbles out of a solution. Here we see the electrolysis of an aqueous sodium hydroxide solution (NaOH), which produces hydrogen gas Keep reading
Swirls of Color
These beautiful swirls show the wake downstream of a thin plate. Here water is flowing from left to right and dye introduced on the plate (upstream and unseen in the Keep reading
Stall with Pitching Foils
For a fixed-wing aircraft, stall – the point where airflow around the wing separates and lift is lost – is an enemy. It’s the precursor to a stomach-turning freefall for Keep reading
Phytoplankton Swirl
View this post on Instagram Every summer, phytoplankton spread across the northern basins of the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, with blooms spanning hundreds and sometimes thousands of kilometers. One Keep reading
Ants Avoid Traffic Jams by Giving Up
Both ants and traffic are well-connected to fluid dynamics, even if they are not, strictly speaking, fluids. As it happens, ant traffic has interesting implications not only for human transit Keep reading
Settling in Straws
At some point in your life, you’ve probably stuck your finger over the end of a straw and used it to pick up the liquid you’re drinking. If you lift Keep reading