Search results for: “art”

The Mobile Mud Spring of Niland, CA
What’s part geyser, part mud pot, and all creeping, unstoppable natural disaster? The Niland Geyser, known as the world’s only moving mud spring. Dianna explores this geological mystery in the video above. Although the mud spring has been known for years, it was only in 2016 that it started moving toward railroad tracks and a state highway. So far engineering efforts to stop it have failed, so engineers are instead working to mitigate its effects on infrastructure.
That’s a tall order when dealing with a pit of unknown depth that’s constantly bubbling with deadly carbon dioxide. The spring managed to move past a 75-foot-deep wall and, on another occasion, sent heavy drilling mud flying skyward from its built-up pressure. Check out the full video to learn more. (Image and video credit: Physics Girl)
June 17, 2021
Skipping Stone Physics
Skipping stones across water has fascinated humans for millennia, but incredibly, we’re still uncovering the physics of this game today. A recent paper built and experimentally validated a mathematical model of a spinning, skipping disk. The authors found that, in order to skip, a stone needs to generate upward acceleration greater than 3.8 times gravity.
To get that lift, the stone needs both the Magnus effect and the gyro effect. The Magnus effect is an aerodynamic force generated by an object spinning in a fluid that curves it away from its direction of travel — it’s what curves a corner kick into the goal in a soccer match. The gyro — or gyroscopic — effect also has to do with spinning, but it’s a result of conservation of angular momentum. Essentially, when you try to shift the axis that a rotating object spins around, there’s a force that resists that change. (The classic demo for this uses a spinning bicycle wheel.)
In stone skipping, the gyro effect helps stabilize the stone’s bounce and, if it’s spinning fast enough, keeps its direction of travel straight. Once the stone’s spinning slows, the Magnus effect can start to curve its trajectory. (Image credit: B. Davies; research credit: J. Tang et al.; via Physics World; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh)
June 16, 2021
The Intermittent Spring of Afton, WY
Yellowstone may get top billing, but Wyoming is home to more fluid dynamical wonders, like the world’s largest rhythmic spring. Located a little outside Afton, WY, Intermittent Spring — as the name indicates — runs for roughly 15 minutes, stops for the same length, then starts up again. The leading theory for this periodic flow depends on the siphon effect. Essentially, water runs continuously into a cavern underground, but to get to the surface, it must traverse a narrow tube with a high point that lies above the spring’s eventual exit. When the water level reaches that high point, it creates a siphon, sucking water out of the cavern and making the spring flow. But eventually the water level drops to the point where air rushes in, breaking off the flow until the water level recovers. That’s consistent with the spring’s behavior; it only runs in this intermittent fashion from late summer to fall, when groundwater levels are lower. (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons; video credit: University of Wyoming Extension; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh)

June 15, 2021
Space Hurricanes
Researchers have observed their first “space hurricane” – a 1,000-km-wide vortex of plasma – in Earth’s upper atmosphere. Like conventional hurricanes, this storm featured precipitation (of electrons rather than rain), a calm eye at its center, and several spiral arms. Based on the group’s model, interactions between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic fields drive the storm. Interestingly, the storm they observed occurred during a period of low solar and geomagnetic activity, which suggests that such space hurricanes could be frequent, both on Earth and in the upper atmospheres of other planets. (Image credit: Q. Zhang; research credit: Q. Zhang et al.; via Physics World)
June 14, 2021
Where Does Stormwater Go?
Stormwater management is one of the biggest municipal challenges towns and cities face. Urban surfaces are largely impermeable, preventing rainwater from soaking into the ground. Instead roads, ditches, and channels collect water and, typically, divert it as quickly as possible into natural waterways.
In contrast, wild landscapes tend to slow water run-off, filtering it into the water table, soaking it up with vegetation, and distributing it across a larger area. Recently, cities have started using low-impact development strategies, like rooftop gardens and rainwater collection, to mimic natural landscapes in urban ones. (Image and video credit: Practical Engineering)
June 10, 2021
Reintroducing Beavers
Beavers are impressive ecological engineers and a keystone species for wetland environments. But in the UK, it’s been nearly 400 years since beavers were regularly found in the wild. In the meantime, Victorian engineering sensibilities drastically altered the landscape to quickly drain rainwater from upstream locations, which unfortunately increases flooding dangers downstream.
But all of that is changing with the reintroduction of wild beavers in a Cornwall experiment. Within their 5 acres, the beavers are transforming the landscape by deepening ponds and slowing water drainage. Their dams create ideal habitat spaces not only for the beavers but for many other species of mammals, birds, and insects. Check out the full interview to learn more and see this previous post for a similar effort in the Western U.S. (Video and image credit: BBC Earth)
June 8, 2021
Building a Water-Based Computer
Having previously tackled the “greedy” self-starting siphon, Steve Mould set out to build a water-based computer capable of adding simple numbers. To do this, he had to build logic gates capable of distinguishing concepts like AND and exclusive OR (XOR); the self-starting siphon was critical for this, diverting water down one output or another depending on the TRUE or FALSE result. With a series of water logic gates, he built a simple computer capable of adding numbers in binary. Check out the video to see it all in action! (Video and image credit: S. Mould)
June 3, 2021
Collective Motion in Grains
Flocks of birds and schools of fish swarm in complicated collective motions, but groups of non-living components can move collectively, too. In this Lutetium Project video, we learn about grains that, when vibrated, self-propel and form complex collective motions similar to those seen in groups of living organisms.
A key feature of the grains is their lack of symmetry. To be self-propelling, they must have a well-defined orientation, defined by a different front and back. The grains also have the freedom to move in a direction that is not the same as the direction they’re oriented in. This allows the grains to rotate, which enables them to perform the large-scale motions seen in the experiments. (Video and image credit: The Lutetium Project; research credit: G. Briand et al.)
May 31, 2021
Visualizing Music With Ferrofluids
Here’s an ultra-cool DIY project: a Bluetooth speaker with ferrofluid music visualization! The music playing through the speaker drives an electromagnet, which causes the magnetic ferrofluid to pulse and shred in time with the music. Check out the video to see the project in action plus footage of the build coming together. (Video and image credit: DAKD Jung; via Gizmodo)
May 28, 2021
Bubbles Rising
Here we see high-speed video of air bubbles rising through sesame oil. The flow rate of air is just right for one bubble to catch up to and merge with the previous bubble. As it the trailing bubble pinches off from the valve, it shoots a small jet through itself and into the prior bubble. For information on how to recreate this and related experiments, check out this article. (Image credit: C. Kalelkar and S. Paul, source; see also C. Kalelkar)
May 27, 2021

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