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
The Two-Faced Splash
The way a sphere enters water depends on its size, speed, and surface properties. A hydrophilic (water-attracting) sphere behaves differently than a hydrophobic (water-repelling) one. But what happens when the Keep reading
Eye of the Stellar Storm
AG Carinae is a bright, unstable luminous blue variable star. This rare type of star lives fast and dies young (by stellar standards) over only a few million years. During Keep reading
Collective Motion in Grains
Flocks of birds and schools of fish swarm in complicated collective motions, but groups of non-living components can move collectively, too. In this Lutetium Project video, we learn about grains Keep reading
Visualizing Music With Ferrofluids
Here’s an ultra-cool DIY project: a Bluetooth speaker with ferrofluid music visualization! The music playing through the speaker drives an electromagnet, which causes the magnetic ferrofluid to pulse and shred Keep reading
Bubbles Rising
Here we see high-speed video of air bubbles rising through sesame oil. The flow rate of air is just right for one bubble to catch up to and merge with Keep reading
Snapping When Swollen
The Venus flytrap snaps shut on its hapless prey by swelling cells in its leaves with water. Under the added pressure of a fly’s footstep, the leaves’ snapping instability triggers, Keep reading