A year ago I observed what a strange year 2020 had been, and in many ways, I could say the same of 2021. Before the pandemic, I spent quite a lot of time traveling. In 2021, the only nights I slept outside my own bed came on a long weekend up to the mountains with my family. But 2021 also saw a bit of a return to normalcy – I was giving keynote addresses and workshops again, albeit virtually. What will 2022 hold? Who knows?!
As per tradition, here are the top FYFD posts of 2021:
- A superior mirage leaves a ship floating in mid-air
- Drone videos of sheep herding are mesmerizing
- Permeable pavement allows water to drain
- The slow and dreamy fluid landscape of “Le Temps et l’Espace”
- What do you do when you’re an insect researcher with a high-speed camera?
- Satellite images… or paint?
- The intricate lacework of the Venus’s flower basket sea sponge
- Building a Bluetooth speaker with ferrofluid music visualization
- Finding the acoustics of Stonehenge
- Making butter by traditional French methods
It’s an eclectic mix of topics this year: bizarre phenomena, stunning art, archaeological exploration, and a touch of biophysics!
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(Image credits: mirage – D. Morris, sheep – L. Patel, pavement – Practical Engineering, Le Temps – T. Blanchard, insects – Ant Lab, Satellike – R. De Giuli, sea sponge – G. Falcucci et al., speaker – DAKD Jung, Stonehenge – T. Cox et al., butter – Art Insider)