This Is Your Brain

The human brain, like an egg, consists of soft matter bathed in a fluid and encased in a hard shell. To better understand how our brains respond to sudden accelerations, researchers looked at how egg yolks behave. (Image credit: cracked egg - K. Nielsen, others - J. Lang et al.; research credit: J. Lang et al.; via Physics World; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh) Read the full article

This Is Your Brain

The human brain, like an egg, consists of soft matter bathed in a fluid and encased in a hard shell. To better understand how our brains respond to sudden accelerations, researchers looked at how egg yolks behave. (Image credit: cracked egg - K. Nielsen, others - J. Lang et al.; research credit: J. Lang et al.; via Physics World; submitted by Kam-Yung Soh) Read the full article

Moving the surface a droplet sits on creates some interesting dynamics, especially if the surface is hydrophobic. (Image and research credit: M. Coux et al.)

Giving droplets a kick by accelerating the surface they sit on creates elaborate shapes as the drops respond. As the surface accelerates upward, the droplet flattens into a pancake. When the plate slows down, the droplet continues rising, stretching into a cone as its rim flies upward and its lower surface adheres to the surface. The rim retracts with a constant acceleration while the drop detaches with a constant velocity. That velocity depends on how well it adheres to the surface. The interplay between those two variables determines how conical or cylindrical the drop appears. See more in the full video below. (Image and video credit: P. Chantelot et al.)