Mirror, mirror on the wall

–  Who’s the fairest of them all? –  But what if the mirror had not been as clean and bright as it should have been? Neither the Queen nor Snow White could have asked the magic mirror that famous and memorable question. Mirrors have played an important role in films, not only in ‘Snow White and the seven Dwarfs’, but also in some older such as ‘Taxi Driver‘ or ‘The Shining‘ and some recent such as ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ or ‘Black Swan’. Even Justin Timberlake dedicated a song to mirrors! What would we do without mirrors? We could not even know how we are or look like (or how we dress)!

But what happens when a mirror gets old? Why do mirrors grow old? Let’s find it out!

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Quicksand: science behind the scenes.

Have you ever imagined what you would do if you got trapped in quicksand? Is quicksand a living being? Why does it suck things down? Let’s figure out the ins and outs of this amazing and at the same time weird thing in this new post.

What is quicksand?

First of all, no, it is not a living being who is going to “eat” you. It is a colloid hydrogel, made of a mixture of sand, clay or slit and water. It is mainly formed in areas where there is lots of underground water. This kind of hydrogel is also called a non-newtonian fluid. These fluids get completely different behaviour, depending on the stress you apply to them, as they can change its viscosity (continue reading to know more about non-newtonian fluids). When there is a lot of stress, they behave as a solid: they are tough. However, when there is no stress, it becomes soft and behaves like a regular fluid.

Continue reading “Quicksand: science behind the scenes.”