FYFD

Tag: flow visualization

  • 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,Β 2023,Β 2022,Β 2021,Β 2020,Β 2019,Β 2018,Β 2017,Β 2016,Β 2015, andΒ 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 areΒ lots of ways to follow alongΒ 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 byΒ becoming a patron,Β 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 withΒ 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. β†©οΈŽ
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    Droplets Through a Forest

    When droplets flow through a forest of microfluidic posts, they can deform around the obstacle or break up into smaller droplets. Here, researchers explore the factors that control the outcome, as well as when droplets collide, coalesce, and mix. (Video and image credit: D. Meer et al.)

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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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    Marangoni Bursting With Surfactants

    A few years ago, researchers described how an alcohol-water droplet atop an oil bath could pull itself apart through surface tension forces. Dubbed Marangoni bursting, this phenomena has shown up several times since. Here, researchers explore a twist on the behavior by adding surfactants to see how they affect the bursting phenomenon. (Video and image credit: K. Wu and H. Stone; via GFM)

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  • Chlorophyll Eddies

    Chlorophyll Eddies

    Instruments aboard NASA’s PACE mission are able to distinguish far more about phytoplankton blooms than previous satellites. This image shows chlorophyll concentrations in the Norwegian Sea in July 2025. Chlorophyll acts as a proxy for phytoplankton, which produce the chemical as they process sunlight into food and oxygen.

    Despite their microscopic size, phytoplankton have enormous collective effects. Scientists estimate that phytoplankton produce as much as half of the Earth’s oxygen in addition to helping transport carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into the deep ocean. They are also the foundation of the marine food web, feeding nearly all life in the ocean. (Image credit: W. Liang; via NASA Earth Observatory)

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    “Magnetic Vortex”

    The Macro room team is back with a video featuring their signature colorful cleverness. This time they’re using a magnetic stirrer to swirl up some mesmerizing flows. It’s well worth a watch. (Video and image credit: Macro Room)

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    Entraining Bubbles

    Every time I fill a glass at my refrigerator, I watch how the falling jet creates a cloud of bubbles. The bubbles form when the impacting water jet pulls air in with it, though, as this video shows, the exact origins can vary. Here, researchers take a closer, slowed-down look at the situation; they connect disturbances in the jet and waves at its base to the entrained bubbles that form. (Video and image credit: S. Relph and K. Kiger)

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  • A Gentoo Flotilla

    A Gentoo Flotilla

    If you’re used to seeing penguins on land, their speed and grace in the water can surprise. Penguins are even capable of extra bursts of speed through supercavitation. They trap air beneath their feathers and then release it underwater when they need to move faster. Their coating of bubbles reduces their drag and gives them the extra speed to help escape predators like leopard seals. (Image credit: R. Barats/OPOTY; via Colossal)

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    Competing Time Scales

    Fluid dynamics often comes down to a competition between the different forces acting in a flow. Inertia, surface tension, viscosity, gravity, rotation — flows can be affected by all of these and more. In this video, researchers describe the three dominant forces in a rotating fluid like a planet’s atmosphere: viscosity, the fluid’s resistance to flowing; inertia, the fluid’s resistance to accelerating; and rotation, the overall spin of a fluid.

    As shown in the video, which of these three forces dominates will change depending on the speed at which the force acts. We quantify this concept using time scales; the force with the smallest time scale can act fastest and will, therefore, win the tug-of-war. (Video and image credit: UCLA SpinLab)

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