When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes give my younger brothers and me a large tub of oobleck, telling us to go play outside and make a mess. Oobleck is a milky-white, shiny substance known as a ...

Scientists are keen to develop new materials for lightweight, flexible, and affordable wearable electronics so that, one day, dropping our smartphones won’t result in irreparable damage. One team at ...

It takes guts to attempt running across the surface of a liquid. Even more so if a sneaky physicist is nearby. Oobleck is a non-Newtonian fluid, meaning that its viscosity changes depending upon the ...

Oobleck has long been my favorite example of a non-Newtonian fluid, and I’m not alone. It’s a hugely popular “kitchen science” experiment because it’s simple and easy to make. Mix one part water to ...

What happens when you trap yourself with a non-Newtonian fluid? This video explores exactly that. The results are confusing, ...

This article was taken from the February 2014 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by ...

Mayonnaise’s texture is perfect for mimicking what a fuel capsule goes through when it’s blasted with lasers to ignite nuclear fusion, Emily Conover reported in “Mayonnaise may shed light on nuclear ...

Oobleck is famous for acting like both a liquid and a solid. But what happens when you put it inside a giant human hamster ...

An aluminum rod just before (left) and just after (right) it strikes the surface of a cornflour and water suspension. Rather than penetrating, the rod causes the suspension below it to solidify for an ...