Nicole Sharp
@nicolesharp.com
170 followers 63 following 320 posts
Author, aerospace engineer, science communicator. Writes with excessive enthusiasm about fluid physics at FYFD.
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nicolesharp.com
Photographer Rosita Dimitrova describes Iceland as "an absolute heaven" for aerial photography like this featured image. #fluiddynamics #fluidsasart #geophysics #physics #science
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nicolesharp.com
Watch a hagfish's slime threads unfurl in today's FYFD post.
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nicolesharp.com
Seems like a viable interpretation to me
nicolesharp.com
The North Pole of Mars is a raised spiral, and each winter a new layer, roughly a meter thick, of carbon dioxide ice gets deposited over it.
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nicolesharp.com
The Sub-Antarctic Mode Waters (SAMW) lie in the southern Indian Ocean and the east and central Pacific Ocean. Scientists have long debated the origins of the SAMW's waters, and a new study may have an answer
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nicolesharp.com
Siphons are a bit mind-boggling for anyone who has internalized the idea that water always flows downhill. But gravity actually allows a siphon's water to flow up and over an obstacle, provided certain conditions are met.
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nicolesharp.com
To be clear, it was the winners themselves who came up with this fly bit, but the Igs are designed to encourage this sort of thing.

Full disclosure: I'm with the Igs; you can actually see me in the background of this video.
nicolesharp.com
An excellent thread for all of us who appreciate basic scientific research. 🧵 #scicomm
astrokatie.com
As a theoretical cosmologist, I'm frequently asked "what is the benefit of the work you're doing for people's lives?" Nothing I work on makes money or cures disease.

There are a few different answers one can give, at various levels of "convincing" / "actually relevant to why the work is done."

1/🧵
nicolesharp.com
In "Re:Birth," videographer Vadim Sherbakov explores the fascinating patterns of ferrofluids, which suspend tiny ferrous particles in another liquid, often oil.
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nicolesharp.com
Inspired by the roaming rocks of Death Valley, researchers went looking for ways to make ice discs self-propel. Leidenfrost droplets can self-propel on herringbone-etched surfaces, so the team used them here, as well.
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nicolesharp.com
Albuquerque, New Mexico's unique weather characteristics make it a popular destination for hot-air balloonists. While balloonists can control their altitude by warming or venting the air in their balloon, their horizontal travel comes at the mercy of the wind.
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nicolesharp.com
When an iceberg flips, it creates waves that can endanger ships nearby, but the move can also trigger further melting. Researchers studied small, lab-scale versions to see how melting affects an iceberg's likelihood of flipping. #climatechange #fluiddynamics #science
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nicolesharp.com
If you spin a tank of water at a constant speed, it takes on a curved, parabolic shape--a demonstration often called Newton's bucket. Here, a team from UCLA shows how it's done. #diyscience #scicomm
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nicolesharp.com
Tendrils of fog flow over the crest of a hill in this award-winning photograph from Ray Cao. Seen in timelapse, scenes like this show the sloshing, wave-like motion of fog. They're a beautiful reminder that air and water move much the same.
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nicolesharp.com
One of the perpetual challenges for fluid dynamicists is the large range of scales we often have to consider. That problem is even harder for something like the Sun, where the sizes range from hundreds of thousands of kilometers down to only a few kilometers.
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Reposted by Nicole Sharp
rebeccarhelm.bsky.social
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
nicolesharp.com
In our industrialized society, pollutants are, to an extent, unavoidable. Even with technologies to drastically reduce the amount of pollutants leaving a factory or plant, some will still get released. Which is why engineers work to disperse pollutants with smokestacks.
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nicolesharp.com
Even when colder than its freezing point, water droplets have trouble freezing--unless there's an impurity like dust that they can cling to. Now scientists have shown that dustier clouds have more icy tops.
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nicolesharp.com
This will be me in, oh, 6 months?
nicolesharp.com
The Yarlung Zangbo River winds through Tibet as the world's highest-altitude major river. It's also a beautiful example of a braided river.
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nicolesharp.com
100 percent. We rode the boys to the next town over by bike, got bagels, ate lunch, and hit up an indie bookstore. Plus got Covid jabs. Excellent Saturday.
nicolesharp.com
With a flurry of motion along its pectoral fin, a sting ray lifts the sand nearby and disappears into the turbid cloud. This tactic helps the animal both hide and escape.
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nicolesharp.com
Particle image velocimetry visualizes using small, neutrally-buoyant particles illuminated with laser light. But most PIV particles are expensive and potentially toxic for test animals, so researchers are searching for biodegradable alternatives.
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nicolesharp.com
Securing information on the Internet requires a lot of random numbers, something computers are not good at creating on their own. This need for random input raises an important philosophical and practical question: what is randomness?
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nicolesharp.com
Shaped by its strong internal magnetic field and the incoming solar wind, Jupiter has the largest magnetosphere in the solar system. It also has highly active aurorae at its poles, though they are most visible in ultraviolet wavelengths.
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