Celebrating the physics of all that flows with Nicole Sharp, Ph.D.
- Profile
Whale Migration Carries Nutrients
When it comes to the movement of nutrients in the ocean, we think of run-off from rivers, upwelling along coasts, and convective currents. We don’t typically think about animal migrations, but a new study of baleen whales (including species like humpbacks and right whales) suggests that these massive mammals provide a small but critical spreading…
Bigger Particles Slide Farther
Mudslides and avalanches typically carry debris of many shapes and sizes. To understand how debris size affects flows like these, researchers use simplified, laboratory-scale experiments like this one. Here, researchers mix a slurry of silicone oil and glass particles of roughly two sizes. The red particles are larger; the blue ones smaller. Sitting in a…
“Now I See – The Collection Vol. 1”
On the heels of his behind-the-scenes introduction, here’s the first volume of artist Roman De Giuli’s “Now I See”. In it, we appear to soar above vast colorful landscapes. Rivers flow past islands. Glaciers creep along valleys. Canyons cut through deserts. It’s like a bird’s eye view of our planet’s terrestrial wonders. (Video and image…
Tracking Insects in Flight
Insects are masters of a challenging flight regime; their agility, stability, and control far outstrip anything we’ve built at their size. But to even understand how they accomplish this, researchers must manage to capture those maneuvers in the first place. Insects don’t stay in one small area, which is what the typical fixed camera motion…
Fractal Fingers
As bizarre as the branching fractal fingers of the Saffman-Taylor instability look, they’re quite a common phenomenon. In his video, Steve Mould demonstrates how to make them by sandwiching a viscous liquid like school glue between two acrylic sheets and then pulling them apart. The more formal lab-version of this is the Hele-Shaw cell, which…
Pour-Over Physics
Fluids labs are filled with many a coffee drinker, and even those (like me) who don’t enjoy coffee, can find plenty of fascinating physics in their labmates’ mugs. Espresso has received the lion’s share of the research in recent years, but a new study looks at the unique characteristics of a pour-over coffee. In this…
Interstellar Jets
This JWST image shows a couple of Herbig-Hero objects, seen in infrared. These bright objects form when jets of fast-moving energetic particles are expelled from the poles of a newborn star. Those particles hit pockets of gas and dust, forming glowing, hot shock waves like those seen here in red. The star that birthed the…
“Spines”
Water droplets cling to spine-covered plant life in this series from photographer Tom Leighton. The hairs are hydrophobic — notice how spherical the drops appear. Many plants make parts of their leaves and stems hydrophobic in order to redirect water toward their roots, where it can be taken in. Others use hair-like awns to collect…
Mapping the Mozambique Channel
The Mozambique Channel boasts some of the world’s most turbulent waters, driven by eddies hundreds of kilometers wide. Eddies of this size — known as mesoscale — determine regional flows that influence local biodiversity, sediment mixing, and how plastic pollution moves. To better understand the region, scientists measured a mesoscale dipole from a research vessel.…
Kirigami in the Flow
Kirigami is a paper art that combines folding and cutting to create elaborate shapes. Here, researchers use cuts in thin sheets of plastic and explore how the sheets transform in a flow. Depending on the configuration of cuts, the sheets can stretch dramatically in the flow, creating complex, dynamic, and beautiful wakes. I feel like…