A raft of mosquito eggs floats on water in this award-winning image by Barry Webb. Capillary effects stretch and distort the interface, creating a complicated meniscus where the eggs meet Keep reading
Tag: meniscus
Enhancing the Cheerios Effect
The Cheerios in your morning cereal clump together with one another and the bowl’s wall due to an attractive force caused by the curvature of their menisci. A recent study Keep reading
Settling in Straws
At some point in your life, you’ve probably stuck your finger over the end of a straw and used it to pick up the liquid you’re drinking. If you lift Keep reading
The Cheerios Effect
You’ve probably noticed that cereal clumps together in your breakfast bowl, but you may not have given much thought as to why. This tendency for objects at an interface to Keep reading
Crowns On Impact
Dropping a partially-filled test tube of water against a table makes the meniscus at the air-water interface invert into a jet of liquid. In some cases, the impact is strong Keep reading
Granular Plugs
Imagine filling a narrow tube with a mixture of water and tiny glass beads. Then take a syringe and very slowly start drawing out the water. As the water gets Keep reading
Rebounding Jets
The photo sequence in the upper image shows, left to right, a fluid-filled tube falling under gravity, impacting a rigid surface, and rebounding upward. During free-fall, the fluid wets the Keep reading
Staining Patterns
This timelapse video shows a particulate suspension as it dries and the pattern formation that results. The mixture of silicon dioxide particles and water is spread over a glass slide. Keep reading