fluid dynamics

Topic description and stories

Digital wave background and program code

New AI models trained on physics, not words, are driving scientific discovery

27 Jan 2026

While popular AI models such as ChatGPT are trained on language or photographs, new models created by researchers from the Polymathic AI...

The multicellular model organism Volvox, showing individual somatic cells (isolated magenta circles distributed over the entire surface), daughter spheroids (a few larger clusters of magenta circles), and compartments around each somatic cell (green).

Glowing algae reveal the geometry of life

14 Aug 2025

Researchers have captured the first clear view of the hidden architecture that helps shape a simple multicellular organism, showing how cells work...

Map of depth-integrated anthropogenic carbon

Giant underwater waves affect the ocean’s ability to store carbon

16 Mar 2023

Underwater waves deep below the ocean’s surface – some as tall as 500 metres – play an important role in how the ocean stores heat and carbon...

Fluid mechanics and the energy transition

14 Oct 2022

Decarbonisation of the energy system is the greatest challenge we face. At Cambridge’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Flows, world-leading...

Two-metre COVID-19 rule is ‘arbitrary measurement’ of safety

23 Nov 2021

A new study has shown that the airborne transmission of COVID-19 is highly random and suggests that the two-metre rule was a number chosen from a...

A new model could help stall shifting sand dunes, protecting infrastructure and ecosystems

26 Oct 2021

Cambridge scientists have used downscaled laboratory models to show how sand dunes move through a landscape, revealing the conditions that determine...

Microscope images showing two species of algae which swim using tiny appendages known as flagella

Algae use their ‘tails’ to gallop and trot like quadrupeds

03 May 2016

Species of single-celled algae use whip-like appendages called flagella to coordinate their movements and achieve a remarkable diversity of swimming...

Tea kettle whistle. Homepage banner image: Dwayne Bent (Att-SA)

How the kettle got its whistle

24 Oct 2013

Researchers have finally worked out where the noise that makes kettles whistle actually comes from – a problem which has puzzled scientists for more...