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    Strandbeest Evolution

    Each spring, artist Theo Jansen releases his latest batch of wind-driven kinetic sculptures — known as Strandbeests — on a Dutch beach. This video compilation shows some of the newest strandbeests, including a variety of flying strandbeest. I find their motion mesmerizing. Some stroll, some undulate, some galumph their way across the the sands. Given their size — much larger than a person and often weighing 180 kilograms — it’s amazing to see them driven entirely by the wind through their sails. (Video and image credit: T. Jansen; via Colossal)

  • Using Turbulence in Flight

    Using Turbulence in Flight

    When small, heavy particles are in a turbulent flow, they settle faster than in a quiescent one. Their interactions with turbulent eddies sweep them along, extracting energy that lengthens their overall path but reduces the time necessary for them to fall. Using the same principles, researchers are finding ways for rotorcraft and other vehicles to extract energy from turbulence for more efficient flight.

    The technique forces a vehicle to behave like a heavy particle by sensing turbulent gusts from its own accelerations and adding forcing to those accelerations when they are in the desired direction of flight. In essence, the vehicle uses the turbulence of its surroundings to find helpful tailwinds. (Image credit: A. Soggetti; research and submission credit: S. Bollt and G. Bewley)

  • Brilliant Auroras

    Brilliant Auroras

    Glowing auroras billow across Canada in this satellite image from a recent geomagnetic storm. As our sun enters a more active part of its solar cycle, we can expect more space weather as the high-energy particles of the solar wind interact with our planet’s magnetic field. The auroras themselves are light released by energetically excited atoms of oxygen and nitrogen high in the upper atmosphere.

    Earth is not the only place in the solar system to experience these light shows. With their strong magnetic fields, Jupiter and Saturn have auroras that make Earth’s look paltry in comparison. (Image credit: J. Stevens; via NASA Earth Observatory)

  • How Fabric Dries

    How Fabric Dries

    How do damp clothes dry in air? Such a seemingly simple question has vexed physicists for years because it’s extremely difficult to observe what happens inside the cloth fibers. Now researchers have used magnetic resonance techniques to track the material’s drying process.

    Inside wet fabric, water exists in one of two states: it can be bound to the fabric fibers through hydrogen bonds or it circulates as a vapor in the voids between. Before this study, scientists had no way of confirming the relationship between these two states. Models simply assumed that most of the drying took place as water vapor left the fabric.

    In their measurements, the team watched textiles dry in open-topped containers exposed to dry air. With their magnetic resonance technique, they could track the bound water in the textile over time. They found that the model that fit their data the best is one in which the bound water and water vapor reach equilibrium instantaneously. (Image credit: K. Cao; research credit: X. Ma et al.; via APS Physics; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh)

  • Deciphering Krakatau

    Deciphering Krakatau

    In 1883, the eruption of Krakatau (also called Krakatoa) shook the world, sending shock waves and tsunamis ricocheting across the globe. Some of the smaller waves hit shorelines in the Atlantic and Pacific that were entire continents and ocean basins away from the original explosion. At the time, scientists were so perplexed by the phenomenon that they blamed coincidental earthquakes for the wave action.

    Only when Tonga experienced a similarly devastating volcanic eruption earlier this year were scientists able to verify what they’d long suspected: these smaller tsunamis were not caused by solid material displacing water; instead they are the result of atmospheric pressure waves coupling to the ocean. Follow the full story over at Quanta. (Image credit: M. Barlow; via Quanta; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh)

  • Ant Bridge

    Ant Bridge

    As red ants scout their way to food, the terrain can sometimes get in the way. Here a leading scout has made their body into a bridge that their fellows can use to cross the watery gap. Take a close look at the water’s surface and you’ll see that the meniscus curves up to meet the rocks. That’s a clue that this image is really very small! For water on Earth, that curvature only occurs at lengths below a couple of millimeters, where surface tension has the power to overcome gravity’s efforts to flatten the surface. The ants’ bridge is only possible because the red ant is small enough and light enough for surface tension to support it. Learn more about the amazing interactions of ants and water in some of my previous posts. (Image credit: Chin Leong Teo; via Colossal)

  • Box Closing Physics

    Box Closing Physics

    My fellow board game aficionados (and anyone else who regularly opens and closes lidded boxes) have probably noticed the way a lid drops slowly onto its box once aligned. The weight of the lid pressurizes air inside the box, driving a flow through the narrow gap between the walls of the box and the lid. Researchers found that the time it takes for a box to slide closed is closely related to the size and shape of the gap between the walls. Despite gaps of less than 1 millimeter, air moving out of the box typically flows at about 1 meter per second!

    With their mathematical model of the flow from a closing box, the group was also able to determine the optimal shape for a fast-closing box, something that may be of interest to manufacturers as well as fans of board games. (Image credit: N. Sharp; research credit: J. de Ruiter et al.; via APS Physics)

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    “ColorLover”

    “ColorLover,” a short film by artist Rus Khasanov, is a delightful liquid rainbow. The video’s ingredients seem to be ink, paint, oil, and a bit of superhydrophobic coating primed to reveal a heart. I love that latter touch; it’s a cool way to use regular materials in a way that some might assume involved digital effects! (Video credit: R. Khasanov)

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    “Reverent”

    Today, enjoy this moody black-and-white short film of storm timelapses. Photographer Mike Olbinski is a master of this subject. I never tire of watching his towering convective supercell thunderstorms or his picturesque microbursts. The lightning-lit clouds in the latter half of the film are particularly spectacular (assuming you do not have sensitivities to flashing lights). And there are a few haboobs and a tornado in there for good measure, too. (Image and video credit: M. Olbinski)

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    Within the Bubble’s Pop

    To our eyes, a soap bubble appears to pop instantly, but when observed in high-speed video, the process is far more complex. In this video, the Slow Mo Guys pop human-sized bubbles, giving us an opportunity to appreciate the rupture process at speeds up to 50,000 frames per second.

    Once the rupture starts, the hole spreads very symmetrically. But as the hole grows, the remaining soap film starts distorting. As Gav and Dan observe, the far side of the bubble actually wrinkles up before the rupture front arrives and tears the remaining fluid into droplets! (Image and video credit: The Slow Mo Guys)

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