Awesome Water

Slow-motion photographer wmhejiu shows us how to make a no-bake cake using a plate filled with water, a jumbo steel washer, and a high-speed camera. It’s too bad he couldn’t take a bite out of it in the fraction of a second that the cake-shaped splash existed.

“I know this looks bad… but I’m doing it for the sake of science.” Mattias Krantz likes to do some crazy and borderline sacrilegious stuff to pianos. In this clip, he took an old piano, waterproofed it, then filled it with bucket after bucket of water to see what it would sound like when its strings and soundboard were submerged.

Designed by architects Atruio Vittori and Andreas Vogler, these unique structures harvest clean water from the air for drinking and sanitation purposes. They were designed to be buildable without scaffolding or machinery, using local, sustainable materials. Find out more about the project at the Warka Water website.

Live Science and physicist Anton Peshkov take us inside the microscopic world of the turbatrix aceti, otherwise known as the vinegar eel. These tiny nematodes thrive on the kind of microbes that transform juice into vinegar and wriggle around like tiny bolts of lightning as they cluster in a single droplet of water.

Inspired by a Gatorade ad that used strobes to display images on falling water, 3Dprintedlife wanted to replicate the idea on a smaller scale. He developed a desktop version that uses solenoid valves to release water droplets illuminated by an LED strobe light. It only displays 2D images, but he plans on making a 3D version.

Hydroforming is the process of shaping metal structures by inflating them with pressurized water or air. Maker Connor Holland has been experimenting with the technique, and shared this compilation of some of the more interesting and satisfying results. The pillow one looks like a metal whoopee cushion.

A while back, Brick Experiment Channel built a 100-wheel LEGO car that drives like a train without rails. Now, they’ve applied the same idea to boats. They linked together a set of 10 different boats using ball joints to see how they would handle the water and waves. The brick-built flotilla reminds us of a water snake.

A splashing droplet of liquid may seem inconsequential when viewed in real-time, but slow that down to 7000 frames per second, and each frame becomes a work of art. Jens Heidler of Another Perspective demonstrates with a montage of hypnotic images he shot using a Photron Fastcam Nova S16 high-speed camera.

Water is critical to the survival of almost all living things. This fascinating time-lapse short film by Christian Stangl provides a close-up look at what happens to organics as they run out of moisture. Stangl captured the images using a combination of macro lenses and microscopes. View a selection of stills on Flickr.

Sprya’s claims that its latest water gun is the world’s strongest. It uses an automatic pump that blasts out “water bullets”, instantly soaking your opponents. Its firing range is 30 to 46 feet depending on mode and firing angle, and it comes in blue and red so you can easily identify teammates and enemies.

Photography Jens Heidler of Another Perspective uses ordinary objects to create extraordinary images. To make this video, he captured time-lapse macro footage of M&Ms melting in a fish tank. As the sugary shells slowly dissolve, colorful patterns emerge in the candies’ watery grave.

Loeva is showing off their design for a standup paddleboard that lets you see through to the water below your feet. It’s made using a crystal clear material for its middle, wrapped in a lightweight carbon frame. Integral LED lighting provides illumination to a depth of up to 15 meters (49 feet) in clear water.

It’s been a while since we’ve been on a waterslide, but this insane looking ride at Belgium’s Plopsaqua De Panne looks like something we’d want to work our way up to. Riders start out in a nearly vertical position, then the floor drops out from under their feet for a speedy descent straight down into the tube.

Have you ever left a sink or tub running to the point where it overflows? Hopefully, you caught it before it did what happens in this video from NRK. In what we can only imagine was the Norwegian equivalent of Mythbusters, they filled the upper level of a bathroom with water to see just how much it would take to make the floor collapse.

The Backyard Scientist has a penchant for dangerous, yet impressive experiments. In this clip, he takes to his swimming pool with a contraption that’s designed to blow perfect bubble rings, but instead of just filling them with oxygen, he introduces some propane, so when hit with an electric charge, they explode.

The Stretch Armstrong toy was engineered to be stretched as much as possible, though we’re pretty sure they never intended for it to do this. Watch as the guys from The King of Random cut off his head, then pump him with 25 gallons of water. On the second go-round, they removed the sticky goo inside to improve their results.

Due to the global pandemic, The Slow Mo Guys are still stuck an ocean apart, so today’s clip features a solo experiment conducted by Gav, who has the duo’s high-speed cameras in his possession. Sit back and enjoy some slow-motion footage of molten thermite being poured into an aquarium filled with water.

Despite being one of the most common (and lifegiving) chemicals on Earth, water behaves in ways that it probably shouldn’t. This clip from Seeker dives into the deep end of the ocean as it explains some of the strange properties of H2O, and why scientists are still learning things about this theoretically simple compound.

This crazy video loop shows what happens when grass grows on top of boggy marsh. Basically, the water forms a large bubble underneath the turf layer, which can actually be ridden like a wave – at least until you fall through it.

In this scene from the Discovery UK show Richard Hammond’s Big, the Hamster visits the Verbund Hydro Power plant in Austria. Watch as he gets up close and personal with the massive stream of water coursing out of the bottom of a hydroelectric dam, where more than 5000 gallons of water gush out per second.

Do you have a dirty sidewalk or driveway at your house? Pressure washing is a great way to get the grime off. Craig “Turnah81” Turner shows us how to use brick stencils to make a little bit of temporary art while hosing off his parking pad. Also, we love the Aussie pronunciation of “algae.”

Stay hydrated even when you’re out in remote locations with Hydrapak’s oversize water pack. It has an 8-liter capacity, yet flattens and rolls to a small size for storage. It has a waterproof TPU body, a removable tap, a flexible webbing handle, and has marks for measuring its contents.

LifeStraw is known for its outdoor water filter straws. The company is now bringing its expertise to the home with this elegant but highly effective two-stage filtration system. The Home pitcher also has an easy fill lid and is made of shatter-resistant glass.