As you may have noticed when washing vegetables, many plants have superhydrophobic leaves. Water just beads up on their surface and slides right off. This is a useful feature for plants that Keep reading
Tag: viscoelasticity
Making Giant Soap Bubbles
Making soap bubbles is fun, but there’s something about gigantic soap bubbles that brings out the child in everyone. The world’s largest freestanding soap bubble had more than 100 square meters of Keep reading
How the Hagfish Deploys Its Slime
Hagfish – an eel-like species – are known for their prodigious slime production, which helps them escape predators (and, in some cases, seriously muck up highways). Part of the hagfish’s Keep reading
Viscoelasticity and Liquid Armor
One proposed method for improving bulletproof armor is adding a layer of non-Newtonian fluid that can help absorb and dissipate the kinetic energy of impact. Thus far researchers have focused Keep reading
Collective Motion: Worms
Although most animals are more solid than fluid, what happens when you put many of them together can be strikingly fluidic. Above you see the black aquatic worm, Lumbriculus variegatus, Keep reading
“Volumes”
“Volumes” is an experimental art film by Maxim Zhestkov using physics-based particle animation. Waves and unseen forces send billions of color-changing particles aloft in the film. The motions – especially Keep reading
Pressing Non-Newtonian Fluids
For many fluids, the relationship between force and deformation is not simple. The catch-all name for these materials is non-Newtonian fluids. In a recent episode, the Hydraulic Press Channel did Keep reading
When Fire Ants are a Fluid
Substances don’t have to be a liquid or a gas to behave like a fluid. Swarms of fire ants display viscoelastic properties, meaning they can act like both a liquid Keep reading
Hagfish Crash
Last week a flatbed truck in Oregon overturned and released 3400 kilograms of live hagfish on the highway and nearby cars. Hagfish are eel-like fish known for their impressive slime Keep reading
Blue Man Group in Slow Mo
In their latest video, the Slow Mo Guys team up with the Blue Man Group for some high-speed hijinks, some of which make for great fluidsy visuals. Their first experiment Keep reading