In nature, we often find turbulence mixed with convection, meaning that part of the flow is driven by temperature variation. Think thunderstorms, wildfires, or even the hot, desiccating winds of Keep reading
Category: Research
Floating in Levitating Liquids
When it comes to stability, nature can be amazingly counter-intuitive, as in this case of flotation on the underside of a levitating liquid. First things first: how is this liquid Keep reading
Synchronizing Microfluidic Drops
In nature, synchronization occurs when oscillators interact. A group of metronomes shifting to tick in unison is a classic example. Here, the system is a microfluidic T-junction and the oscillators Keep reading
Dead Water
In the days before motorized propulsion, sailors would sometimes find themselves slowed nearly to a stop by what they called ‘dead water‘. As discovered in laboratory experiments over a century Keep reading
Collecting Animal Tears
Like humans, most vertebrates rely on tear films to keep their eyes moist and protected from the environment. But compared to humans, some animals’ tears have superior staying power. The Keep reading
Making a Miniature River
Despite wide differences in ecology and geology, rivers around the world share certain fundamental features. Physicists study these characteristics by creating small-scale rivers in the laboratory, like the experiment featured Keep reading
Understanding Stars’ Seismology
Our understanding of Earth’s interior is based mostly on observations of seismic waves, which travel differently through our rocky crust and the molten core. Scientists similarly use seismic waves in Keep reading
Storm Eyes and Mushrooms in a Drop
In industry, drying droplets often have many components: a liquid solvent, solid nanoparticles, and dissolved polymers. The concentration of that last component — the polymers — can have a big Keep reading
Granular Fingers
Finger-like shapes often form on fluids injected between glass plates, but what happens when that injected fluid contains particles? That’s the situation in this recent study, where researchers sandwiched a Keep reading
Recreating Infinity
In the ocean, tiny organisms can migrate hundreds of meters through the water column. Recreating and tracking those journeys in a lab is quite a challenge, but it’s one the Keep reading