Related papers: Dynamic flows create potentially habitable conditi…

Mechanisms such as ice-shelf hydrofracturing and ice-cliff collapse may rapidly increase discharge from marine-based ice sheets. Here, we link a probabilistic framework for sea-level projections to a small ensemble of Antarctic ice-sheet…

Active hydrothermal vents provide the surrounding submarine environment with substantial amounts of matter and energy, thus serving as important habitats for diverse megabenthic communities in the deep ocean and constituting a unique,…

Active liquid crystals or active gels are soft materials which can be physically realised e.g. by preparing a solution of cytoskeletal filaments interacting with molecular motors. We study the hydrodynamics of an active liquid crystal in a…

Since its discovery, the deep-sea glass sponge Euplectella aspergillum has attracted interest in its mechanical properties and beauty. Its skeletal system is composed of amorphous hydrated silica and is arranged in a highly regular and…

The first step in exploring the properties of dynamical systems like the Earth climate is to identify the different phase space regions where the trajectories asymptotically evolve, called `attractors'. In a given system, multiple…

When ice forms on lakes, dissolved salts are rejected, which can lead to under-ice salt-finger formation. We performed a series of laboratory experiments to visualize these fingers. While we detected salt-fingers in our camera recordings,…

Convective flows coupled with solidification or melting in water bodies play a major role in shaping geophysical landscapes. Particularly in relation to the global climate warming scenario, it is essential to be able to accurately quantify…

Saturn's moon Titan is the only extraterrestrial body known to host stable lakes and a hydrological cycle. Titan's lakes predominantly contain liquid methane, ethane, and nitrogen, with methane evaporation driving its hydrological cycle.…

Active droplets are artificial microswimmers built from a liquid dispersion by microfluidic tools and showing self-propelled motion. These systems hold particular interest for mimicking biological phenomena, such as some aspects of cell…

New experiments for water at the surface of proteins at very low temperature display intriguing dynamic behaviors. The extreme conditions of these experiments make it difficult to explore the wide range of thermodynamic state points needed…

I consider the kinetics of water freezing and show that, at small sub-zero temperatures, (i) the time of ice nucleation within the bulk water environment is enormous and therefore cannot take place either in lakes of in living cells; (ii)…

Habitability is usually defined as the requirement for a terrestrial planet's atmosphere to sustain liquid water. This definition can be complemented by the dynamical requirement that other planets in the system do not gravitationally…

Rogue planets have been ejected from their planetary system. We investigate the possibility that a rogue planet could maintain a liquid ocean under layers of thermally-insulating water ice and frozen atmosphere as a result of geothermal…

In seasonally ice-covered seas and along the margins of perennial ice pack, i.e. in regions with medium ice concentrations, the ice cover typically consists of separate floes interacting with each other by inelastic collisions. In this…

We study the spatio-temporal dynamics of a model of polar active fluid in two dimensions. The system exhibits a transition from an isotropic to a polarized state as a function of density. The uniform polarized state is, however, unstable…

The structure of the Antarctic Slope Current at the continental shelf is crucial in governing the poleward transport of warm water. Canyons on the continental slope may provide a pathway for warm water to cross the slope current and intrude…

The Argo project deploys thousands of floats throughout the world's oceans. Carried only by the current, these floats take measurements such as temperature and salinity at depths of up to two kilometers. These measurements are critical for…

We study theoretically the effects of confinement on active polar gels such as the actin network of eukaryotic cells. Using generalized hydrodynamics equations derived for active gels, we predict, in the case of quasi one-dimensional…

Using simulations of hard rods in smectic-A states, we find non-gaussian diffusion and heterogeneous dynamics due to the equilibrium periodic smectic density profiles, which give rise to permanent barriers for layer-to-layer diffusion. This…

The climates of terrestrial planets with a small amount of water on their surface, called land planets, are significantly different from the climates of planets having a large amount of surface water. Land planets have a higher runaway…