Fall and winter storms rip Lake Erie with violent waves. Photographer Trevor Pottelberg of Ontario captures the dramatic eruptions of mist and spray from these massive, turbulent waves. It’s amazing Keep reading
Year: 2025
Waves in Liquid Crystals
Liquid crystals are now ubiquitous in displays, but scientists are still discovering new properties for this state of matter. Here, a team explores nematic liquid crystals, whose rod-like shape rotates Keep reading
Classifying Waves
In a lab, researchers create their waves in a long, clear-sided tank, where they can observe how the waves form, travel, and interact. To generate the wave, they use a Keep reading
Airflow in the Opera
Like so many other performers, the singers and musicians of New York’s Metropolitan Opera House were left without a way to safely perform when the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic began in early Keep reading
In a Box, Shaken
Tidal areas experience lots of oscillating, back-and-forth flow that builds up patterns in the sand below. In this experiment, researchers investigate a similar situation by filling a box with water Keep reading
Walking in the Wake
Flow visualization is an important tool in fluid dynamics, and scientists have many ways to capture and visualize flow information. But our methods are not the only — or even Keep reading
Why Moths Are Slow Fliers
Hawkmoths and other insects are slow fliers compared to birds, even ones that can hover. To understand why these insects top out at 5 m/s, researchers simulated their flight from Keep reading
Vietnam’s Emerald Isles
Vietnam’s Hạ Long Bay is home to more than 1,600 islands, many of them made up of mountainous limestone. The area is famous for its karst features, a type of Keep reading
Never Break the Chain
Pour water out of a bottle, and you’ll see a jet with a shape that resembles chain links. Sometimes known as a “liquid chain,” this phenomenon occurs when water pours Keep reading
Pumping With Faraday Waves
Vibrate a liquid pool vertically, and it will form a pattern of standing waves known as Faraday waves. Here, researchers confine those waves to a narrow ring similar in size Keep reading