Through thick and thin

Decades-old fluid question solved

24-Apr-2018 - What do paint, dishwasher detergent, ketchup and blood have in common? All are composed of particles suspended in a carrier liquid and flow when stirred or forced, but remain thick or even gel-like at rest. That very useful behavior in complex fluids is called shear thinning: their viscosity ...

Experiment documents multiscale fluid dynamics

07-Aug-2017 - University of Chicago physicists working in the nascent field of experimental vortex dynamics have, with unexpected help from a Sharpie marker, achieved the first measurements of an elusive but fundamental property of fluid flow. Until now, there had been no way in the laboratory to measure the ...

Small nanoparticles have surprisingly big effects on polymer nanocomposites

10-Mar-2017 - Polymer nanocomposites mix particles billionths of a meter (nanometers, nm) in diameter with polymers, which are long molecular chains. Often used to make injection-molded products, they are common in automobiles, fire retardants, packaging materials, drug-delivery systems, medical devices, ...

A new form of light

Scientists have discovered a method to create fluorescent light that may have promising applications

06-Oct-2016 - Glow-in-the-dark stickers, weird deep-sea fish, LED lightbulbs -- all have forms of luminescence. In other words, instead of just reflecting light, they make their own. Now a team of scientists from the University of Vermont and Dartmouth College have discovered a new way that some molecules can ...

Technique mass-produces uniform, multilayered particles

06-Oct-2016 - Microencapsulation, in which a tiny particle of one material is encased within a shell made from another, is widely used in pharmaceuticals manufacturing and holds promise for other areas, such as self-repairing materials and solar power. But most applications of microencapsulation require ...

Thinning out the carbon capture viscosity problem

20-May-2016 - To make "clean" fossil fuel burning a reality, researchers have to pull carbon dioxide out of the exhaust gases that rise from coal or natural gas power plants and store or reuse it. For the capturing feat, researchers are studying special scrubbing liquids that bind and release the gas, but some ...

Largest atom smashers create smallest droplets

How small can a droplet shrink and still remain a liquid?

08-Oct-2015 - The LHC successfully created sub-atomic blobs of Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) by colliding lead ions together. Smashing these two massive ions together generated tremendous temperatures, that are required for the primordial state of matter to form. “Lead ions are very large, each containing hundreds ...

Beyond peer review: manage errors in research data

19-Sep-2013 - Traditional peer review is not enough to ensure data quality amid the recent boom in scientific research findings, according to results of a 10-year collaboration between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and five technical journals. While production of research data is ...

New nanochemistry technique encases single molecules in microdroplets

28-Sep-2009 - Inventing a useful new tool for creating chemical reactions between single molecules, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have employed microfluidics—the manipulation of fluids at the microscopic scale—to make microdroplets that contain single molecules of ...

Ultracold gas mimics ultrahot plasma

Duke and Brookhaven examine free-flowing 'exploding cigars'

17-Feb-2009 - Several years after Duke University researchers announced spectacular behavior of a low density ultracold gas cloud, researchers at Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed strikingly similar properties in a very hot and dense plasma "fluid" created to simulate conditions when the universe ...