Hit it hard and it will fracture like a solid... but tilt it slowly and it will flow like a fluid. This is the intriguing property of a type of "complex fluid." Hit it hard and it will fracture like a ...

Blood may be thicker than water, but in a narrow enough tube, both liquids flow like treacle. This sluggish behaviour arises because, as you reduce the size of the channel, friction between the liquid ...

Current drilling and fracturing methods can't extract oil and natural gas very well, recovering an estimated 5 percent of oil and 20 percent of gas from shale. That's partly due to a poor ...

The Lab Report: Every week, The Lab Report takes a deep dive into the (research) lives of students and professors outside the classroom. Somewhere along the Mississippi River, a blissful current whips ...

In this simple demonstration, we see what seems like a special effect. But it’s not. Here’s how laminar flow makes reality look like an optical illusion. It looks totally fake. Corn syrup dyed yellow, ...

Researchers at MIT have observed “electron whirlpools” for the first time. The bizarre behavior arises when electricity flows as a fluid, which could make for more efficient electronics. Like water, ...