Dolphin Bubbles

[Trek]

This is really cool, if you're interested in animal behavior.

YouTube - Dolphin Bubbles: Science Behind this Amazing Behavior

 

[Leonidas]

That is cool - thanks for sharing.

I was interested in the science behind it and found this...

Dolphins create bubble rings by blowing air in a water vortex ring: by flipping a fin they create a vortex ring of water. The then blow air in the ring, which goes to the center of the vortex ring. In the water vortex ring the natural location of the air is in the center of the vortex. When air and water move in a circular path like they do in the vortex ring, air and water are separated due to the centripetal force. Since density of water is larger than air, water moves at the outside, while the air ends up in the middle.

Deep Ocean Diving - Science, technology and medicine related to scuba diving

There's a paper that focuses more on the social aspects of the behavior here: http://faculty.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/faculty/bjmccowan/Pubs/McCowanetal.JCP.2000.pdf

 

[Coach]

I was pretty skeptical -- this looks gravity-defying to me. But according to snopes.com this is valid.

Coach

 

[freebird5825]

That was amazing - TY for posting.

 

[ls99]

Next they will work on Lissajous figures. Neat the way the manipulate the air rings. Thanks for the post.

 

[harley]

Totally cool. DW and I both appreciate the post.