How much time will a dripped drop of coffee be a drop, before it loses its full-bodied nature? This study sniffs into the question: “On the Lifetime of a Coffee Drop,” Paul Bienvenu, Haruka Hitomi, and David Quéré, Soft Matter, epub 2026. The authors, at PSL Research University, ESPCI-Paris, France, report: As we know, a […]
Tag: water
Splitting hairs, Grave water, Drinking grandma, Axe hazard, Etc.
This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has five segments. Here are bits of each of them: Splitting hairs — “Academics are often accused of ‘splitting hairs’,” David Taylor tells Feedback. “Well this year my team and I have done just that. We built a machine which can literally split a single hair from […]
How much of a person is water?
“Total body water was determined by deuterium oxide dilution in 17 normal male subjects with a range of 55.9% to 70.2% and an average value of 61.8% of body weight. Eleven normal females ranged from 45.6% to 59.9% with an average of 51.9%, or 9.9% less than the males. These total body water figures have […]
The special WATER issue of the magazine (Improbable Research)
The special WATER issue (vol. 29, no. 2) of the magazine is now out and about. The table of contents and several of the articles are online. As you might guess, it’s full of improbable research about water.



