To make this heart, photographer Helene Caillaud flung paint off a tool attached to a drill bit, much like Fabian Oefner did in his “Black Hole” series. Caillaud, however, tweaked Keep reading
Month: February 2021
Watery Suction Enables Spiderman-Like Climbing
Spiderman makes it look easy, but sticking to surfaces with enough force to climb them is a challenge at the human scale. These researchers tackled the problem with a new Keep reading
Using Flow Separation to Fly
Fixed-wing flight typically favors the efficiency of long skinny wings, which is why so many aircraft have them. But for smaller flyers, like micro air vehicles (MAVs), short and stubby Keep reading
In Search of a Better Espresso
Of specialty coffee drinks, espresso has the most cup-to-cup variation in quality. For those who are not coffee aficionados — such as yours truly — espresso is made by forcing Keep reading
The World in a Droplet
Capturing refracted images in a droplet is a popular pastime among high-speed photographers, and in this solo Slow Mo Guy outing, we get to see that process in video. Physically, Keep reading
Perfecting Giant Bubbles
Whether young or old, everyone enjoys blowing soap bubbles, and the bigger the bubble, the more impressive it is. Researchers have been on a quest to discover how bubbles can Keep reading
Where are Titan’s Deltas?
Saturn’s moon Titan is the only other planetary body in our solar system known to have bodies of liquid on its surface. But where Earth has lakes and seas of Keep reading
Wild Gray Seals Clap Back
Here’s a paper that cries out for fluid dynamical/acoustical follow-up: wild gray seals have been observed signaling underwater by clapping their forefins. As you can hear in the video, the Keep reading
Collective Catfish Convection
Gather many birds, fish, or humans together and you often get collective motion that’s remarkably fluid-like in appearance. This video shows a group of juvenile striped eel catfish, an (eventually) Keep reading
Coalescence in Heavy Metal Droplets
When a drop of water falls into a pool, it doesn’t always coalesce immediately. Instead, it can go through a coalescence cascade in which the drop partially coalesces, a daughter Keep reading