A lucky encounter led the Perseverance rover to record the first-ever sound of a dust devil on Mars. The rover happened to have its microphone on (something that only happens Keep reading
Tag: vortices
A Fractal Raft From a Spinning Top
File this one under Cool Things I Would Have Never Thought Of. In this video, researchers play around with the flow around a spinning top and end up creating a Keep reading
Mixing Effectively
Mixing two fluids is a tougher task than you might think. One of my favorite asides from a fluids lecture concerned how to mix fruit into yogurt in an industrial Keep reading
Spinning Off-Axis
To make a vortex in the laboratory, researchers typically set a tank on a rotating platform and allow the water to drain out a hole in the center of the Keep reading
Tidal Vortices
Local topography in the Sea of Okhotsk funnels water to create some of the largest diurnal tides in the world — nearly 14 meters! The currents rushing past islands and Keep reading
Surf’s Up!
Inspired by honeybees and their ability to surf on capillary waves of their own making, researchers have developed SurferBot, a low-cost, untethered, vibration-driven surf robot. Built on a simple 3D-printed Keep reading
Quantum Instability
In our everyday lives, two fluids moving past one another often form a wave-like pattern thanks to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. We see it in the curl of waves on the Keep reading
Stingray Eyes
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
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