University of Pittsburgh researchers reversed the direction of the energy cascade in two-dimensional turbulence using one small, correctly angled obstacle. The result loosens the long-held rule that a flow's dimensions alone decide whether energy moves to larger or smaller eddies.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence50
Yi Hu's group at Nankai University sent a narrow beam against the flow of a broader optical fluid. The swimmer felt attraction while the fluid pushed back, and the net force pointed upstream.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence60
Standard active nematic theory sends paired defects along straight, mirrored lines. A Ben-Gurion-led team reports in Nature Physics that it measured curved, co-rotating paths in swarming bacteria and in human bronchial cells.
Reality
- Evidence44
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+30
- Incentives68
- Confidence46
Heating a gold-coated sphere with tailored light patterns makes the same particle push like a bacterium or pull like an alga. Because the laser can only add heat, the slowest style turned out to be the most efficient.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption10
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives35
- Confidence55
Polystyrene spheres of 1 and 1.5 microns in an alternating field pull on each other unequally, pair off with the big one in front, and keep building clusters that break apart again over more than an hour.
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives30
- Confidence55
A TIFR and Heinrich Heine simulation study reports that doping a sheared glass with self-propelled particles raises the stress it bears and replaces the single fatal shear band with a network.
Reality
- Evidence46
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives38
- Confidence44