Sitting in a restaurant, you reach for the ketchup bottle, eyeing the basket of fries in front of you. You give the bottle a ...

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 ...

Lacquers, paint, concrete—and even ketchup or orange juice: Suspensions are widespread in industry and everyday life. By a suspension, materials scientists mean a liquid in which tiny, insoluble solid ...

Scientists didn’t understand why independently oscillating microscopic particles suddenly begin moving in perfect sync when grouped together. Researchers showed that fluid-driven hydrodynamic ...

If you mix cornstarch and water in the right proportions, you get “oobleck”: something that seems not-quite-liquid but also not-quite-solid. Oobleck flows and settles like a liquid when untouched, but ...

Materials scientists are measuring the rolling friction of tiny, micrometer-sized particles. These measurements permit them to better understand everyday products such as concrete. For the first time, ...

The measuring tip of an atomic force microscope with a specially designed holder in which a spherical particle is “trapped”. Lacquers, paint, concrete—and even ketchup or orange juice: Suspensions are ...