Turbulent ball: William Irvine, Takumi Matsuzawa and colleagues have used this apparatus to track turbulence with lasers and high-speed cameras. (Courtesy: Takumi Matsuzawa) Researchers in the US have ...

A complex maze of lasers, lenses and mirrors has been used to twist light into a vortex shaped like a doughnut. Vortex rings are common in fluids – think of smoke rings floating in air or underwater ...

A vortex ring is a doughnut-shaped phenomenon where fluids or gases knot and spin in a closed, usually circular loop. The physics of vortex rings is the same as that which gives stability to tornadoes ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A team of researchers discovered an extraordinary property of vortex rings—how dolphins propel themselves underwater—that science ...

Better understanding the formation of swirling, ring-shaped disturbances -- known as vortex rings -- could help nuclear fusion researchers compress fuel more efficiently, bringing it closer to ...