#surface roughness

Getting caught in the rain is annoying for us but has the potential to be deadly for smaller creatures like insects. So how do they survive a deluge?  (Video and image credit: Be Smart) Read the full article

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Growing up in northwest Arkansas, I spent my share of summer nights sheltering from tornadoes. Central North America -- colloquially known as Tornado Alley -- is especially prone to violent thunderstorms and accompanying tornadoes. That's due, in part, to two geographical features: the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico.  (Image credit: G. Johnson; research credit: F. Li et al.; via Physics World) Read the full article

As blocks of sea ice shift and float, they can press together, forming ridges spaced every few hundred meters or so. A new study uses aerial observations from recent decades to show that these sea ridges are getting smaller in both size and number, a smoothing of Arctic topography that has many consequences. (Image credit: USGS; research credit: T. Krumpen et al.; via Eos) Read the full article

Soft materials tend to be sticky, and once they're adhered to a surface, they're often harder to remove than they were to attach -- think of Scotch tape stuck to a desk. This difficulty separating sticky things -- known as adhesion hysteresis -- has been attributed to various causes, like energy lost to viscoelasticity or age-related chemical bonding. But a new study shows that both those explanations are unnecessary. (Image and research credit: A. Sanner et al.; via Physics World) Read the full article

In fluid dynamics, we're often concerned with flow moving past a solid surface -- air past an airplane wing, water past fish scales, oil between moving parts -- and those surfaces are rarely perfectly smooth.  (Image credit: J. Kostelecky and C. Ansorge) Read the full article

Some of the differences between beach volleyball and indoor volleyball are obvious, like the number of players allowed -- two versus six -- and the courts -- a smaller sand court versus a bigger indoor court. But there are subtle and significant differences in the balls themselves.  (Image credits: I. Garifullin, C. Chaurasia, C. Oskay, and M. Teirlinck) For more ongoing and past Olympic coverage, click here. Read the full article