Knowtex

As explained by Derek Muller on Veritasium, the flow of water in trees involves complex physical phenomena including pressure, osmosis, negative pressure, capillarity and evapotranspiration. What seems simple will blow your mind!

On March 31, 1851, Léon Foucault demonstrated for the first time in public that the Earth turns on its axis. His famous pendulum, installed for the occasion inside the Pantheon, in Paris, offered elegant proof of this imperceptible movement.

After an enthralling visit to the Pasteur Institute, Arthur goes to the University Paris Diderot to meet Mathieu Génois, a theoretical physicist studying barchan dune fields.

Researchers are re-purposing animal parts that could be useful to new robots. The latest entries in that field are 3D-printed robotic suckers, which mimic the suction ability of a squid or octopus.

Plants, we know, are capable of modest movements, despite being fixed where they stand. They may lean toward a sunny window, and generally grow up, away from the force of gravity. However, a new study has shown that gravity is not the only factor plants take into consideration as they grow.

Advances in computing power seem almost never to stop. But can this trend continue in 2013 and beyond? What’s planned at CERN during this year’s scheduled shutdown? Find out here what the experts of scientific computing see in their crystal balls.

Colors... What are they really? Are there the same for all of us? And for other animals? How does color addition or subtraction work? How do they work on computers? And on printers? The mysterious (but not dark) world of colors is actually very colorful!

Magic tricks can draw on dexterity, science, technique or even psychology. Here, we offer you the chance to travel back in time, to the beginning of the 20th century, and to reveal to you a few tricks of the period.

A drop of mercury being vibrated from ~120Hz down to ~10hz filmed at regular speed. The high density and surface tension cause it to resonate at different frequencies in different ways. The higher the frequency the more nodes it will form on its edge.

The math and physics behind Felix Baumgartner’s jump. Detailed study of breaking the sound barrier. Also, height comparisons, temperature, air pressure.