Sandcastle building is no child's play, say physicists

Aeolian ripples, which form regular patterns on sand beaches and desert floors, indicate the fundamental instability of flat sand surfaces under the wind-induced transport of sand grains.

(Phys.org) -- If you look at a razor burrowing clam sitting in a bucket, you’d never guess that it could burrow itself down into the soil, much less do it with any speed. Razor clams look like fat straws, ...

Microbiologically contaminated water plagues approximately 1.1 billion people in rural and peri-urban populations in developing countries. Roughly 2.2 million people without safe access to drinking water die each year from ...

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have developed a way to transform ordinary sand -- a mainstay filter material used to purify drinking water throughout the world -- into a "super sand" with five times the filtering ...

Wet sand could pose a health risk for beach goers, researchers at the University of Florida said.

Sand in an hourglass might seem simple and straightforward, but such granular materials are actually tricky to model. From far away, flowing sand resembles a liquid, streaming down the center of an hourglass ...

Physicists understand perfectly well why a fridge magnet sticks to certain metallic surfaces. But there are more exotic forms of magnetism whose properties remain unclear, despite decades of intense research. ...

(Phys.org) —From the high-resolution glow of flat screen televisions to light bulbs that last for years, light-emitting diodes (LEDs) continue to transform technology. The celebrated efficiency and versatility ...

A systematic error has been eliminated from a measurement technique for analysing the physical properties of the Earth's atmosphere using signals from GPS satellites – thanks to an Austrian Science Fund ...

A University of British Columbia engineer and a team of U.S. researchers have made a breakthrough utilizing spray-on technology that could revolutionize the way optical lenses are made and used.

Research teams from UW-Milwaukee and the University of York investigating the properties of ultra-thin films of new materials are helping bring quantum computing one step closer to reality.

Things not always run smoothly. It may happen, actually, that when an object slides on another, the advancement may occur through a 'stop and go' series in the characteristic manner which scientists call ...