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Soft Matter news
Leaves' resilience to raindrops offer insights into energy harvesting potential
To a leaf, a falling raindrop is equivalent in mass to a bowling ball dropping on a person—so how does the leaf survive? New research elucidates the raindrop's impact and the physical dynamics that help the leaf respond, ...
General Physics
Dec 23, 2024
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Scientists reinvent equations governing formation of snowflakes, raindrops and Saturn's rings
Skoltech researchers have proposed novel mathematical equations that describe the behavior of aggregating particles in fluids. This bears on natural and engineering processes as diverse as rain and snow formation, the emergence ...
General Physics
Dec 23, 2024
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Active particles reorganize 3D gels into denser porous structures, study shows
Colloidal gels are complex systems made up of microscopic particles dispersed in a liquid, ultimately producing a semi-solid network. These materials have unique and advantageous properties that can be tuned using external ...
Molecular 'pinball': Superfast collisions predict supercritical fluid properties
Neither gas nor liquid, supercritical fluids exhibit a unique mashup of the properties of both and arise when fluids are pushed to very high temperatures and pressures. Their properties make them ideal for a wide variety ...
General Physics
Dec 19, 2024
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New model find molecular interactions key to creating order in active systems
Non-reciprocal interactions can increase the order in an active system. This is the finding of a study by scientists from the department of Living Matter Physics at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization ...
General Physics
Dec 12, 2024
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Physicists introduce approach to control wave patterns via fluid flows
The reliable control of traveling waves emerging from the coupling of oscillations and diffusion in physical, chemical and biological systems is a long-standing challenge within the physics community. Effective approaches ...
Self-organization in action: Exploring Abrikosov clusters in a liquid crystal droplet
Science often surprises us with its ability to connect seemingly unrelated phenomena. Have you ever stopped to marvel at how nature arranges itself into intricate patterns, like the spirals of a sunflower or the crystals ...
New method discovered for controlling molecular patterns on liquid droplets
A team of researchers has uncovered a previously unknown phenomenon that could improve the way we design materials at the molecular level. By unlocking a transformation between two types of structural defects on the surface ...
Soft Matter
Dec 2, 2024
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3D-printed particles propel themselves across the surface of a fluid
A small team of physicists at the University of Amsterdam has demonstrated the ability of 3D-printed particles to propel themselves across the surface of a fluid, given the right fuel. The group has posted a paper describing ...
Tiny rotating particles create vorticity in viscous fluids, yielding fascinating new behaviors
Vorticity, a measure of the local rotation or swirling motion in a fluid, has long been studied by physicists and mathematicians. The dynamics of vorticity is governed by the famed Navier-Stokes equations, which tell us that ...
How tiny droplets can deform ice: Findings show potential for cryopreservation and food engineering
When water freezes slowly, the location where water turns into ice—known as the freezing front—forms a straight line. Researchers from the University of Twente showed how droplets that interact with such a freezing front ...
General Physics
Nov 25, 2024
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Theoretical model explains the anomalous properties of water in extreme conditions
Water, a molecule essential for life, has unusual properties—known as anomalies—that define its behavior. However, there are still many enigmas about the molecular mechanisms that would explain the anomalies that make ...
Soft Matter
Nov 14, 2024
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Fluids thicken at the speed of light: A new theory extends Einstein's relativity to real fluids
The theory of special relativity is rife with counterintuitive and surprising effects, the most famous of which are length contraction and time dilation. If an object travels at a relative speed, which is a non-negligible ...
Experiment reveals how Earth's magnetic field influences flow in planet's core
A trio of physicists, two with Coventry University, in the U.K., and the third with Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses, in France, has demonstrated how Earth's magnetic field may be influencing internal ...
The secrets of baseball's magic mud: Study quantifies its properties to show it's not simply a superstition
The unique properties of baseball's famed "magic" mud have never been scientifically quantified—until now. In a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School ...
General Physics
Nov 4, 2024
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New image recognition technique for counting particles provides diffusion information
A team of scientists have invented a technique to determine the dynamics of microscopic interacting particles by using image recognition to count the number of particles in an imaginary box. By changing the size of the observation ...
Study finds optimal standing positions in airport smoking lounges
While many smoking rooms in U.S. airports have closed in recent years, they are still common in other airports around the world. These lounges can be ventilated, but how much does it actually help the dispersion of smoke?
General Physics
Oct 29, 2024
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Scientists demonstrate precise control over artificial microswimmers using electric fields
In a new study in Physical Review Letters, scientists have demonstrated a method to control artificial microswimmers using electric fields and fluid flow. These microscopic droplets could pave the way for targeted drug delivery ...
Investigating the flow of fluids with non-monotonic, 'S-shaped' rheology
Water and oil, and some other simple fluids, respond in the same way to all levels of shear stress. These are termed Newtonian fluids, and their viscosity is constant for all stresses although it will vary with temperature. ...
Soft Matter
Oct 28, 2024
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Key role of structural defects in amorphous solid deformation uncovered
Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) Pune and the CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (NCL) Pune have shown that the macroscopic deformation of amorphous solids is controlled by structural ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 18, 2024
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More news
Ocean waves grow way beyond known limits, new research finds
Scientists characterize shale cap rocks at tiny scales
Other news
Fish-friendly dentistry: New method makes oral research non-lethal
NASA probe makes closest ever pass by the sun
Researchers reveal full-gray optical trap in structured light
Modeling a right royal butterfly effect
Model shows how plankton survive in a turbulent world
Two Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting nearby star detected
Extremely rare baby mammoth found in Siberia
Biologists studying apples discover structural cell protein also directly regulates gene transcription
