Concentric circles of colorful water float in the frame of photographer Jack Long’s images. At first glance, the liquid sculptures appear to be the splashes from one or more falling Keep reading
Month: January 2025
To Fizz or Not to Fizz
Place a drop of carbonated water on a superhydrophobic surface and it will slide almost frictionlessly, much the way Leidenfrost drops do. The drop behaves this way thanks to the Keep reading
Snowing in the Core
Some rocky planetary bodies, like Jupiter‘s moon Ganymede, generate magnetic fields through snow-like, solid precipitation that falls in their liquid metal cores. To study this peculiar and complex arrangement, researchers Keep reading
Squeeze or Splatter?
Many a white shirt has met the disaster of a nearly-empty condiment bottle. One moment, you’re carefully squeezing out ketchup, and the next — sppplltlttt — you’re covered in red Keep reading
Self-Propelled Droplets
Drops of ethanol on a heated surface contract and self-propel as they evaporate. My first thought upon seeing this was of Leidenfrost drops, but the surface is not nearly hot Keep reading
“A Sense of Scale – Reminiscence”
In so much of fluid dynamics, size does not matter. We see the same patterns mirrored across nature from a fuel injection nozzle to galactic clusters. And no one plays Keep reading
Nanoconfined Water
Water is a decidedly weird substance. It’s densest above its freezing point; it has a slippery liquid-like layer on its solid form; and, in the right form, it can bend Keep reading
Simulating Schools
In nature, fish school for many reasons: protection from predators, increased sensing, and hydrodynamic advantages. To capture this complex behavior, researchers are building their own digital fish, governed by known Keep reading
Soapy Solutions
When a drop of soap falls into a pool of water, its surface-loving molecules spread out on the water’s surface. Exactly how the soap spreads depends on the local concentration Keep reading
Draining a Bottle
Turn a bottle upside-down to empty it, and you’ll hear a loud glug-glug-glug as the liquid in the bottle empties and air rushes in. In this video, researchers aim a Keep reading