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    ExaWind Simulation

    Large-scale computational fluid dynamics simulations face many challenges. Among them is the need to capture both large physical scales–like those of Earth’s atmospheric boundary layer–and small scales–like those of tiny eddies moving around a wind-turbine blade. Capturing all of these scales for a problem like four wind turbines in a wind farm requires using the full computing power of every processor in a large supercomputer. That’s the level of power behind the simulation visualized in this video. The results, however, are stunning. (Video and image credit: M. da Frahan et al.)

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  • The Twin Roles of Turbulence in Fusion

    The Twin Roles of Turbulence in Fusion

    Inside a fusion reactor, magnetically-contained plasma gets heated to more than one hundred million degrees. That heat, researchers observed, spreads much faster than originally predicted. Now a team from Japan has measurements showing how turbulence manages this feat.

    The researchers show that the multiscale nature of turbulence allows it to transport heat in two ways. The first is familiar: acting locally, turbulence spreads heat little by little as small eddies mix and pass the heat along. But turbulence can also be nonlocal, they show, able to connect physically distant parts of a flow more rapidly than expected. This happens through turbulence’s larger scales, which can rapidly carry heated plasma from one side of the vessel to another.

    The researchers illustrate the two roles of turbulence through a metaphor of American football (can you believe it?). In their metaphor, the quarterback acts as turbulence and the ball represents heat. The quarterback can pass the ball to reach distant parts of the field quickly — just as nonlocal turbulence does–or they can hand off the ball to a running back, who carries the ball down the field more slowly, through local interactions with other nearby players. (Image credit: National Institute for Fusion Science; research credit: N. Kenmochi et al., via Gizmodo and EurekAlert)

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  • Marangoni Effect in Biology

    Marangoni Effect in Biology

    For decades, biologists have focused on genetics as the key determiner for biological processes, but genetic signals alone do not explain every process. Instead, researchers are beginning to see an interplay between genetics and mechanics as key to what goes on in living bodies.

    For example, scientists have long tried to unravel how an undifferentiated blob of cells develops a clear head-to-tail axis that then defines the growing organism. Researchers have found that, rather than being guided purely by genetic signals, this stage relies on mechanical forces–specifically, the Marangoni effect.

    The image above shows a mouse gastruloid, a bundle of stem cells that mimic embryo growth. As they develop, cells flow up the sides of the gastruloid, with a returning downward flow down the center. This is the same flow that happens in a droplet with higher surface tension in one region; the Marangoni effect pulls fluid from the lower surface tension region to the higher one, with a returning flow that completes the recirculation circuit.

    The same thing, it turns out, happens in the gastruloid. Genes in the cells trigger a higher concentration of proteins in one region of the bundle, creating a lower surface tension that causes tissue to flow away, helping define the head-to-tail axis. (Image credit: S. Tlili/CNRS; research credit: S. Gsell et al.; via Wired)

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    How the Edenville Dam Failed

    Back in May 2020, the Edenville Dam in Michigan failed dramatically, releasing flood waters that destroyed a downstream dam and caused millions of dollars of damage. In this Practical Engineering video, Grady deconstructs the accident, based on an interim report from the forensic team charged with investigating the failure. Along the way, he explains common causes of dam failures, what made the Edenville failure unusual, and how engineers build modern earthen dams to avoid this older design’s flaws. (Image and video credit: Practical Engineering)

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  • Inside Solidification

    Inside Solidification

    As children, we’re taught that there are three distinct phases of matter–solid, liquid, and gas–but the reality is somewhat more complicated. In the right–often exotic–conditions, there are far more phases matter takes on. In a recent study, researchers described a metal that sits somewhere between a liquid and a solid.

    In a liquid, atoms are free to move. During solidification, atoms lose this freedom, and their frozen positions relative to one another determine the solid’s properties. Atoms frozen into orderly patterns form crystals, whereas those frozen haphazardly become amorphous solids. In their experiment, researchers instead observed atoms in liquid metal nanoparticles that remained stationary throughout the transition from liquid to solid. The number and position of stationary atoms affected whether the final solid crystallized or not.

    By tracking these stationary atoms and their influence, the team hopes to better control the material properties of the final solidified metal. (Image credit: U. of Nottingham; research credit: C. Leist et al.; via Gizmodo)

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  • “Rivers and Dunes”

    “Rivers and Dunes”

    Taken from a Cessna aircraft, photographer J. Fritz Rumpf’s image of a Brazilian landscape appears abstract. But it captures a serpentine river and surrounding dunes, dyed brown by decaying plant matter and sculpted by the forces of wind and current. This shot is part of a portfolio that won him the title of 2025 International Landscape Photographer of the Year. (Image credit: J. Rumpf; via ILPOTY)

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  • The Best of FYFD 2025

    The Best of FYFD 2025

    Happy 2026! This will be a big year for me. I’ll be finishing up and turning in the manuscript for my first book — which flows between cutting edge research, scientists’ stories, and the societal impacts of fluid physics. It’s a culmination of 15 years of FYFD, rendered into narrative. I’m so excited to share it with you when it’s published in 2027.

    As always, though, we’ll kick off the year with a look back at some of FYFD’s most popular posts of 2025. (You can find previous editions, too, for 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014.) Without further ado, here they are:

    What a great bunch of topics! I’m especially happy to see so many research and research-adjacent posts were popular. And a couple of history-related posts; I don’t write those too often, but I love them for showing just how wide-ranging fluid physics can be.

    Interested in keeping up with FYFD in 2026? There are lots of ways to follow along so that you don’t miss a post.

    And if you enjoy FYFD, please remember that it’s a reader-supported website. I don’t run ads, and it’s been years since my last sponsored post. You can help support the site by becoming a patron, buying some merch, or simply by sharing on social media. And if you find yourself struggling to remember to check the website, remember you can get FYFD in your inbox every two weeks with our newsletter. Happy New Year!

    (Image credits: droplet – F. Yu et al., starlings – K. Cooper, espresso – YouTube/skunkay, fountain – Primal Space, Uranus – NASA, turbulence – C. Amores and M. Graham, capsule – A. Álvarez and A. Lozano-Duran, melting ice – S. Bootsma et al., puquios – Wikimedia, cooling towers – BBC, solar wind – NASA/APL/NRL, Lake Baikal – K. Makeeva, sprite – NASA, roots – W. van Egmond, sunflowers – Deep Look)

    1. I know what I did. ↩︎
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  • Lung Flows

    Lung Flows

    When a fluid coats the inner walls of a cylinder, it can move downward in what’s called a collar flow. In our airways, a sinking collar flow can thicken as it falls, eventually blocking the airway completely.

    In a Newtonian fluid, this thickening during motion is essentially unavoidable; any small disturbance to the fluid will make its thickness change. But in a viscoplastic fluid–one more akin to the mucus in our airways–researchers found that, below a critical film thickness, the collar flow won’t thicken to form a blockage. (Image and research credit: J. Shemilt et al.; via APS)

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    Ripple Bugs

    Ripple bugs are a type of water strider capable of moving at a blazing fast 120 body lengths per second across the water surface. In addition to their speed, ripple bugs are incredibly agile and are active almost constantly. Researchers believe they’ve found the insect’s secret: feather-like hydrophilic fans that spread on contact with the water. These fans help the insects push off the water and steer, but they require no effort to open and close. They’ve even adapted the technique to bio-inspired robots and seen improvements in speed, agility, and efficiency. (Video credit: Science; research credit: V. Ortega-Jimenez et al.)

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    Leaves Dance in the Wind

    Once a breeze kicks up, leaves on a tree start dancing. Every tree’s leaves have their own shapes, some of which appear very different from other trees. But their dances have patterns, as this video shows. In it, researchers explore how leaves of different shapes deform in the wind and how they can decompose that motion to compare across leaves. (Video and image credit: K. Mulleners et al.; via GFM)

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