Wildfires are an ongoing challenge in the western United States, where droughts and warmer conditions have combined with a century of fire suppression to form perfect conditions for monstrous fires. It’s Keep reading
Category: Research
Surfing Honeybees
Honeybees have superpowers when it comes to their aerodynamics and impressive pollen-carrying, but their talents don’t end in the air. A new study confirms that honeybees can surf. Wet bees Keep reading
Adapting to the Flow
Simulating fluid dynamics computationally is no simple task. One of the major challenges is that flows typically consist of many different lengthscales, from the very large to the extremely tiny. In theory, Keep reading
Creating Biofuel
One production technique for biofuel converts agricultural waste through pyrolysis. These systems heat biomass particles in a mixture of sand and nitrogen gas until the biomass particles release tar and syngas, a Keep reading
Fast-Switching Multi-Material 3D Printer
For 3D printers to reach their potential, they need to handle more than one material and be able to swap quickly and seamlessly between them. That’s a tall order given how different Keep reading
Finding New States of Matter
As children we’re taught that there are three basic states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. The latter two are known scientifically as fluids. But the world doesn’t divide quite Keep reading
Making Drops Stick
As you may have noticed when washing vegetables, many plants have superhydrophobic leaves. Water just beads up on their surface and slides right off. This is a useful feature for plants that Keep reading
Whiskey Stains
Complex fluids leave behind fascinating stains after they evaporate. We’ve seen previously how coffee forms rings and whisky forms more complicated stains as surface tension changes during evaporation drive particles throughout the droplet. Now Keep reading
Leidenfrost Stars
Atop a very hot surface, liquids can instantly vaporize, leaving a drop levitating on a layer of its own vapor. These Leidenfrost droplets demonstrate all kinds of interesting behaviors, including self-propulsion, explosion, and star-shaped Keep reading
Driving Instabilities with a Twist
Imagine that you want to study how two fluids mix when a lighter fluid is pushed into a denser one. Conceptually, it’s a straightforward situation. It would be like having a Keep reading