Skipping stones across water has fascinated humans for millennia, but incredibly, we’re still uncovering the physics of this game today. A recent paper built and experimentally validated a mathematical model Keep reading
Month: March 2025
The Intermittent Spring of Afton, WY
Yellowstone may get top billing, but Wyoming is home to more fluid dynamical wonders, like the world’s largest rhythmic spring. Located a little outside Afton, WY, Intermittent Spring — as Keep reading
Space Hurricanes
Researchers have observed their first “space hurricane” – a 1,000-km-wide vortex of plasma – in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Like conventional hurricanes, this storm featured precipitation (of electrons rather than rain), Keep reading
Light Painting
Light streams from the branches of trees in this series from photographer Vitor Schietti. The effect is created with a combination of fireworks, long-exposure photography, and compositing. I love how Keep reading
Where Does Stormwater Go?
Stormwater management is one of the biggest municipal challenges towns and cities face. Urban surfaces are largely impermeable, preventing rainwater from soaking into the ground. Instead roads, ditches, and channels Keep reading
Falling Beads
Liquids flowing down a fiber can form bead-like droplets that may sit symmetrically (a) or asymmetrically (b) on the fiber. In general, the asymmetric droplets appear as surface tension increases Keep reading
Reintroducing Beavers
Beavers are impressive ecological engineers and a keystone species for wetland environments. But in the UK, it’s been nearly 400 years since beavers were regularly found in the wild. In Keep reading
Rainfall Beyond Earth
Rain is not unique to our planet: Titan has methane rain and exoplanet WASP 78b is home to iron rain (ouch). A new study examines rainfall across planets from the Keep reading
Lava Fields From Above
Lava flows are endlessly fascinating to watch. They’re a destructive act of creation that seems in many ways familiar; after all, lava moves the same way we see other viscous Keep reading
Building a Water-Based Computer
Having previously tackled the “greedy” self-starting siphon, Steve Mould set out to build a water-based computer capable of adding simple numbers. To do this, he had to build logic gates Keep reading