In the Southern Ocean, obstacles are sparse. But the ice-cloaked volcano of Peter I Island is tall enough at over 1600 meters to disrupt the wind. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=31341

Though we rarely notice their movement in the moment, plants, and especially their flowers, are frequently on the move. Here, retired engineer Jay McClellan captures a thymeleaf speedwell flower as it opens, then pushes a stamen toward its pistil, thereby pollina https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=25185

The Venus fly trap has long fascinated scientists with its ability to catch fast-moving prey. Just how the plant closes its "trap" leaf so quickly is a matter of debate. A new study gives us more detail--but not complete clarity--about what's going on. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=31297

Off the coast of Alaska, March 19th, 2026 featured a trio of fascinating clouds. Southwest of Anchorage, a cyclonic polar low twisted up from cold polar air centered over warmer waters. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30579

Oobleck is a peculiar substance. Formed from a suspension of cornstarch particles in water, it can flow like a liquid at low shear rates or jam into a solid under impact. Here, researchers explore what happens to a droplet of oobleck impacting a surface. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30349

Engineering failures always leave us with lessons learned. The failure of Teton Dam in 1976 triggered an overhaul in how we manage dam construction and regulation. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=31333

Someone suggested today at @labphon.bsky.social that academic posters need a QR code going to an email signup for "please send me the official version of this paper once it's done and citable" And all I could say was YES PLEASE CAN I HELP TWEET THIS INTO EXISTENCE

Years ago, photographer Ernie Button discovered an intriguing stain left behind in his whiskey glass after the last drops evaporated. Many liquors and one scientific paper later, we now see what cognac does. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=31085

The US eastern seaboard was once blanketed with oyster beds, but overharvesting, pollution, and habitat destruction decimated the population. A new study shows restored beds are even more valuable than we knew, thanks to their ability to bury excess nitrogen. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=31025

In early February 2026, cold weather swept into southern Florida. The cold fronts churned up sediment and cooled shallow waters, making them denser than the warmer waters of the open ocean. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30938

As anyone who has regularly traveled unpaved roads knows, they have a tendency to develop regularly spaced corrugations, otherwise known as washboarding. This unavoidable phenomenon is fluid mechanical. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=31034

Breaking a jet of liquid into droplets lies at the heart of many industrial processes: spray painting, fuel injection, and asthma inhalers, to name a few. Here, researchers are looking at a different method of breaking up a liquid jet: shooting a shock wave along https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30095

Ooof. Nothing like stepping outside of Bluesky to discover just how egregiously some people are drinking the AI Kool-aid.

Nothing showcases the incredible power of our atmosphere like storms, and no one does stormchase photography like Mike Olbinski. In this vignette, he shows a stunning line of supercells caught near sunset on July 17, 2022. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30682

On 10 August 2025, the slopes of Alaska's Tracy Arm Fjord gave way, sliding into the water. The resulting tsunami was the second-largest ever recorded, with a 481-meter runup after a 100-meter initial wave that moved at more than 70 meters per second. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30699

Insect flight is vastly different than the aerodynamics engineers learn around aircraft. That's particularly apparent looking at these tiny moths taking off and flying in slow motion. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30754

Coffee is a key ingredient in the scientific process for many researchers, so it's no wonder that researchers often develop an interest in the drink's physics and chemistry. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30367

NASA's Ingenuity helicopter was the first aircraft humanity has flown on another planet, and engineers are looking to make the next generation of Martian helicopters bigger and more capable. That's challenging in Mars' thin atmosphere, which is only 1% as dense a https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30574

This.

Artist Thomas Blanchard likes to create wild visuals from a mixture of mundane ingredients like ink, soap, oils, and ferrofluids. #chemistry #fluiddynamics #physics #science https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30865

In the past few decades, our knowledge of exoplanets has exploded, but we're still relatively limited in what we can learn about these worlds. That's due, in large part, to the indirect way we observe them. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30824

The concrete that makes up so much of our world is usually local in origin. To keep costs low, engineers use locally-sourced ingredients to make it. But not all ingredients perform the same. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30722

From oil drums to--yes--soda cans, liquid-filled cylindrical shells are everywhere. And, it turns out, these structures fail differently than empty shells or ones filled with a solid. Liquid-filled cylinders buckle in sequential rings. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30595

Ocean sprays, coughs, and sneezes are just a few of the ways that droplets full of bacteria and salt can get aloft on a breeze. How do these bacteria stay viable even as their droplet evaporates? That's the question in today's post. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30332

Back when I started FYFD, I could find very few decent photos of lava flows to illustrate posts. Now, thanks to drone cameras, we have a glut of absolutely gorgeous footage of flowing lava. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=27037

Keyboard Mistakes Observation #2046: The words "rooted" and "rotted" differ by only one letter.

Cutting through ice using the pressure of a weighted wire does not break an ice block in two. As the wire passes through the ice, the melted water refreezes in its wake, leaving an intact block. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30552

FYI, this book is an absolute delight from the very opening line onward.

Looking for a summer read that covers everything from molecular gastronomy and Indigenous engineering to DNA analysis and cutting-edge medicine? Check out my review of "How the World Flows" over at @physicsworld.bsky.social physicsworld.com/a/the-wonder...

Back in 2015, students were experimenting with an alternative fire extinguisher that used sound below the range of human hearing; now a company is pitching a version of that technology for replacing sprinklers. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30547

Dolphins are such fast and agile swimmers that, naturally, scientists have long wanted to understand how they swim so well. A recent study draws on numerical simulation to analyze the flow a dolphin creates when flapping its tail. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30589

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Supersonic flight over the U.S. has been banned by all non-military aircraft for more than fifty years. But with the X-59, NASA is testing whether supersonic aircraft can be quiet enough to lift the ban. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30635

Seaweed sways in the surf in this photograph by Billy Arthur. I always love how waves look like a stormy sky when viewed from below. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=28978

Nailed it.

Traditional weather forecasting models are physics-based and rely on supercomputers. So-called AI models approach the problem differently, resulting in less ability to predict extreme weather. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30569

Beginning in early spring, brilliant blue ponds form on Greenland's ice sheets as meltwater gathers in indentations. This satellite image shows the ice east of Nordenskiöld Glacier. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30339

People have long hoped to reliably predict volcanic eruptions. An automated system at Piton de la Fournaise in France has been doing so since 2014 with an impressive 92% accuracy. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30362

From mid-February to early May, tiny silvery Pacific herring gather along the shallow coastlines of Vancouver Island off British Columbia, Canada. In these sheltered waters, they spawn, turning the water a milky green. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30375

Photographer Lisa K. Kuhn captured a spectacular lenticular cloud over Mount Shasta in this image from the Sony World Photography Awards. These lens-shaped clouds occur most often near mountains and other terrain that forces air to flow up and over it. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=28464

When the wind blows, trees shift and sway, reconfiguring their shape and their leaves in response. For parts of the year, that flow also plucks pollen grains off the tree, carrying them on the winds. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30356

A tiger skin cake forms a distinctive pattern of light and dark patches as it bakes. Here, researchers look at how the wrinkled surface forms. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30130

On Earth, most waves form when wind blows across the water. The shear and added energy from the wind ripples the surface, eventually building up waves (through the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability). https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30344

When supersonic jets get emitted into rarefied air, they behave differently than they do in regular atmospheric conditions. Here, researchers picture three different configurations these jets can take. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=29991

Looking down on a Icelandic geothermal pool gives a view into a dragon's eye in this drone image by photographer Miki Spitzer. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=28563

After reading Brian Merchant's "Blood in the Machine," I am definitely going full Luddite.

Researchers sometimes study avalanches and other granular flows in a rolling drum, where grains can cascade down continuously. Here, the twist is that they've done it with photoelastic disks, which show stress patterns when viewed under crossed polarizing filters https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30124

The Brennan torpedo -- a 19th-century version of the weapon -- was launched by pulling a cable out the back. As counterintuitive as it sounds, pulling this cable backward propelled the torpedo forward. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=22580

When a test tube of liquid hits a surface, the curvature of the meniscus focuses the rebounding fluid into a jet. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=29971

In mechanical systems, gears and pulleys transmit rotation from one location to another. Here, researchers explore a fluid dynamical version of such systems. The set-up consists of two rotors contained in a cylindrical corral filled with a water-glycerin mixture. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30015