With their flexible, flattened shape, rays are some of the most efficient swimmers in the ocean. But, at first glance, it seems as if their protruding eyes and mouth would Keep reading
Tag: vortices
Sea Sponge Hydrodynamics
The Venus’s flower basket is a sea sponge that lives at depths of 100-1000 meters. Its intricate latticework skeleton has long fascinated engineers for its structural mechanics, but a new Keep reading
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), Keep reading
Loopy Networks and Bird Lungs
When mammals breathe, air flows back and forth inside our lungs. But in birds that inhale and exhale get transformed into one-directional flow inside their lungs. To figure out how, Keep reading
Inside Hydroplaning
When a tire spins over a wet roadway, pressure at the front of the tire generates a lifting force; if that lift exceeds the weight of the car, it will Keep reading
Strings of Swirls
Von Karman vortex streets are the rows of alternating vortices shed off isolated objects interrupting a flow. Here, the volcanic peaks of Cabo Verde disrupt an atmospheric flow accustomed to Keep reading
Vortex Rings on V-Shaped Walls
Vortex ring impacts are eternally fascinating. Here, researchers explore what happens when a vortex ring encounters a V-shaped wall. Because the outer portions of the vortex ring hit the wall Keep reading
Flexible Filament Reduces Drag
Most shapes aren’t streamlined for fluid flow. We call these bulky, often boxy shapes, bluff bodies. Above, we see two examples of a bluff body, a flat plate, in a Keep reading
Ghostly Chandeliers
Under a black light, highlighter fluid creates ghostly trails as it drips through water. The vortices that form and break into this chandelier-like shape are the result of density differences between the Keep reading
Tornadoes of the Sea
This dramatic image shows a waterspout formed off the coast of Florida. Waterspouts come in two varieties: tornadic and fair-weather. Both types can be dangerous to anyone caught up in Keep reading