explaining lava forms
We recently returned from Hawaii where we spent a week exploring Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. The Big Island of Hawaii is made up…
Category: science & nature
nervous system’s reef
I’ve always been fascinated by coral. At first, for the otherworldly environments they create on the ocean floor. And later, for a whole…
Fossilized – the patterns of glyptodon shells
Glyptodons are the extinct ancestors of modern day armadillos. These giant mammals roamed the Americas from 2.5 million years ago until just as…
Becoming Lichenized
Recently, my friend Shaunalynn Duffy asked me to give a talk at a Sprout event centered around Fungi. Specifically she was interested in…
a visit to the New England Aquarium
On Sunday, we visited the New England Aquarium in Boston, one of my favorite places in the city. Here are some photos I…
video: Hele-Shaw Cell experiments
The video documents several Hele-Shaw Cell experiments using two 16×20″ panes of glass. Intricate branching patterns emerge as we insert glycerin, air and…
Researcher Profile: Nigel Goldenfeld
Nigel Goldenfeld is a professor of Physics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign who has worked on a wide-variety of fascinating topics. We…
Researcher Profile: Oyvind Hammer
When we start working on a new project, we do a lot of preliminary research. This usually involves a wide literature search on…
dendritic solidification
Here’s a new project we are working on. It is based on a simulation of solidification in supercooled liquids. As the liquid turns…
ammonite suture patterns
For the holidays, Jesse gave me a 110 million year old fossil Ammonite. It’s a Cleoniceras Ammonite to be specific, found in Madagascar.…