#granularmaterial

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Moving across sand is quite challenging for bipedal creatures like us, but other animals have their ways. Photographer Paul Lennart Schmid caught this snake on the move, with impressions of its passage still in the sand. (Image credit: P. Schmid; via Nature TTL POTY) Read the full article

As charged particles from the solar wind bombard the upper atmosphere, a glowing plasma forms and dances in the sky. The green light of the plasma reflects off moistened sand, rippled by the passage of wind and tide.  (Image credit: L. Tenti; via 2023 Astronomy POTY) Read the full article

At the bottom of ponds, nematodes and other creatures swim in a world of mud. They squirm their way through a sediment of dirt particles suspended in water. (Image credit: nematode - P. Garcelon, experiment - A. Biswas et al.; research credit: A. Biswas et al.) Read the full article

In Susi Sie's "Haut" the camera seems to fly over ever-shifting landscapes. In reality, these are macro images, created (I think) by dyes and patterns atop a water bath.  (Video credit: S. Sie) Read the full article

When excited, a group of particles can behave much like a gas. These granular gases exhibit many similarities to molecular gases but contain one vital difference: without a constant input of energy, granular gases lose kinetic energy to collisions. (Image and research credit: P. Yu et al.; via APS Physics) Read the full article