Fuck Yeah Double Emulsions !

A little demon was waiting for bubbles to float by…

From Un autre monde (another world), written and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Grandville, Paris, 1844.

HOLEY POLYMERS

Mixing two types of biocompatible polymers together, along with an organic solvent and water, produces a variety of spherical particles with different sizes and porosities. The particles have properties that make them good candidates for encapsulating drugs and delivering them to the lungs.

Credit: Langmuir 2014, DOI: 10.1021/la500324j

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If this theory is correct, we may live in a web of alternate timelines

The Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics has been around for nearly 60 years. It’s a highly controversial idea which suggests that our world — and everything in it — is constantly splitting into alternative timelines. If it’s correct, here’s what your true existence might actually be like.

Over a hundred years ago, the discovery of quantum physics ruined the party. Our comfortable, clockwork conception of universe was thrown into disarray with the realization that, at the micro-scale, there’s some crazy funky stuff going on.

Art by Stefanie Jasper

or

A Singularity inside a Singularity; Splitting a water drop during pinch-off of an oil drop.   When a fluid droplet breaks-off from a thinning fluid thread, the thickness of the fluid neck becomes vanishingly small at the point of snap-off leading to a singularity. The snap-off mechanism is driven by surface tension forces - surface tension reduces the surface area by decreasing the radius of the fluid thread.  

Hyperbolic Tiling

Poincaré spheres

Poincaré surface knots

Poincaré hyperbolic tiling of bubbles

Making a Foam from Monodispersed Bubbles.  Foams are trapped pockets of gas in liquids or solids; their structure is a constant source of fascination to almost everyone- from scientists, engineers, chefs and baristas to young children playing with soap bubbles. What is the optimal shape of bubbles in a foam containing bubbles having the same volume?  Lord Kelvin, in 1887, was the first to propose this question as a way to understand perhaps the simplest possible foam structure by determining the lowest energy state of a foam with bubbles having identical volumes. This 3D puzzle was solved computationally in 1994 by Weaire and Phelan and,  several years later, it was experimentally realized by Gabbrielli, Meagher, Weaire, Brakke, and Hutzler; the structure of the bubbles is not only not simple, it is also asymmetric.

Here we show the formation of a two dimensional foam. The pockets of gas are encapsulated in a thin, flexible shell of nanoparticles and toluene and placed on a glass slide after being generated from a microfluidic device. The liquid shell solidifies over time causing the foam to transition from a liquid to solid structure.