Superhydrophobic surfaces (SHSs) have the potential to achieve large drag reduction for internal and external flow applications. However, experiments have shown inconsistent results, with many studies reporting significantly reduced performance. Recently, it has been proposed that surfactants, ubiquitous in flow applications, could be responsible by creating adverse Marangoni stresses. However, testing this hypothesis is challenging. Careful experiments with purified water already show large interfacial stresses and, paradoxically, adding surfactants yields barely measurable drag increases. To test the surfactant hypothesis while controlling surfactant concentrations with precision higher than can be achieved experimentally, we perform simulations inclusive of surfactant kinetics. These reveal that surfactant-induced stresses are significant at extremely low concentrations, potentially yielding a no-slip boundary condition on the air-water interface (the "plastron") for surfactant concentrations below typical environmental values. These stresses decrease as the stream-wise distance between plastron stagnation points increases. We perform microchannel experiments with SHSs consisting of streamwise parallel gratings, which confirm this numerical prediction, while showing near-plastron velocities significantly slower than standard surfactant-free predictions. In addition, we introduce an unsteady test of surfactant effects. When we rapidly remove the driving pressure following a loading phase, a backflow develops at the plastron, which can only be explained by surfactant gradients formed in the loading phase. This demonstrates the significance of surfactants in deteriorating drag reduction and thus the importance of including surfactant stresses in SHS models. Our time-dependent protocol can assess the impact of surfactants in SHS testing and guide future mitigating designs.superhydrophobic surface | drag reduction | surfactant | Marangoni stress | plastron S uperhydrophobic surfaces (SHSs) combine hydrophobic surface chemistry and micro-or nanoscale patterning to retain a network of air pockets when exposed to a liquid (e.g., reviews in refs. 1-3). Because a large portion of the interface between the solid wall and the liquid is replaced by an air-liquid interface, which can be considered almost as a shear-free surface (known as a "plastron"), SHSs could be used to obtain significant drag reduction in fluid flow applications (4, 5). Microchannel tests have recorded drag reductions of over 20% (e.g., refs. 6-11) and rheometer tests reported slip lengths of up to 185 µm (12). Turbulent flow experiments have reduced drag by up to 75% (13-16). However, a wide range of experiments have provided inconsistent results, with several studies reporting little or no drag reduction (16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25).A key step toward solving this puzzle has come with the realization that surfactants could induce Marangoni stresses that impair drag reduction. This was first hypothesized to account for experiments that rev...

Individuals can function as integrated organisms only when information and resources are shared across a body. Signals and substrates are commonly moved using fluids, often channeled through a network of tubes. Peristalsis is one mechanism for fluid transport and is caused by a wave of cross-sectional contractions along a tube. We extend the concept of peristalsis from the canonical case of one tube to a random network. Transport is maximized within the network when the wavelength of the peristaltic wave is of the order of the size of the network. The slime mold Physarum polycephalum grows as a random network of tubes, and our experiments confirm peristalsis is used by the slime mold to drive internal cytoplasmic flows. Comparisons of theoretically generated contraction patterns with the patterns exhibited by individuals of P. polycephalum demonstrate that individuals maximize internal flows by adapting patterns of contraction to size, thus optimizing transport throughout an organism. This control of fluid flow may be the key to coordinating growth and behavior, including the dynamic changes in network architecture seen over time in an individual.

Superhydrophobic surfaces (SHSs) have the potential to reduce drag at solid boundaries. However, multiple independent studies have recently shown that small amounts of surfactant, naturally present in the environment, can induce Marangoni forces that increase drag, at least in the laminar regime. To obtain accurate drag predictions, one must solve the mass, momentum, bulk surfactant and interfacial surfactant conservation equations. This requires expensive simulations, thus preventing surfactant from being widely considered in SHS studies. To address this issue, we propose a theory for steady, pressure-driven, laminar, two-dimensional flow in a periodic SHS channel with soluble surfactant. We linearise the coupling between flow and surfactant, under the assumption of small concentration, finding a scaling prediction for the local slip length. To obtain the drag reduction and interfacial shear, we find a series solution for the velocity field by assuming Stokes flow in the bulk and uniform interfacial shear. We find how the slip and drag depend on the nine dimensionless groups that together characterize the surfactant transport near SHSs, the gas fraction and the normalized interface length. Our model agrees with numerical simulations spanning orders of magnitude in each dimensionless group. The simulations also provide the constants in the scaling theory. Our model significantly improves predictions relative to a surfactant-free one, which can otherwise overestimate slip and underestimate drag by several orders of magnitude. Our slip length model can provide the boundary condition in other simulations, thereby accounting for surfactant effects without having to solve the full problem.

We present the results of a combined experimental and theoretical investigation of the dynamics of drinking in ruby-throated hummingbirds. In vivo observations reveal elastocapillary deformation of the hummingbird's tongue and capillary suction along its length. By developing a theoretical model for the hummingbird's drinking process, we investigate how the elastocapillarity affects the energy intake rate of the bird and how its open tongue geometry reduces resistance to nectar uptake. We note that the tongue flexibility is beneficial for accessing, transporting and unloading the nectar. We demonstrate that the hummingbird can attain the fastest nectar uptake when its tongue is roughly semicircular. Finally, we assess the relative importance of capillary suction and a recently proposed fluid trapping mechanism, and conclude that the former is important in many natural settings.

The sinking of organic particles in the ocean and their degradation by marine microorganisms is one of the main drivers of one of the most conspicuous carbon fluxes on Earth, the biological pump [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] . Yet, the mechanisms determining the magnitude of the pump remain poorly understood, limiting our ability to predict this carbon flux in future ocean scenarios. Current ocean models assume that the biological pump is governed by the competition between sinking speed and degradation rate, with the two processes independent from one another [8][9][10][11] . Contrary to this paradigm, we show that sinking itself is a primary determinant of the rate at which bacteria degrade particles. Heterotrophic bacterial degradation rates were obtained from a laboratory study on model surfacecolonized particles at atmospheric pressure under a range of flow speeds to mimic different sinking velocities. We find that even modest sinking speeds of 8 m/day enhance degradation rates more than 10-fold compared to degradation rates of non-sinking particles. We discovered that the molecular mechanism underlying this sinking-enhanced degradation is the flow-induced removal of the oligomeric breakdown products from the particles, which otherwise compete for enzymatic activity. This mechanism applies across several substrates and bacterial strains, suggesting it could potentially occur more broadly under natural marine conditions. Integrating our findings into a mathematical model of vertical particulate carbon flux, we show that the coupling of sinking and degradation may contribute, in conjunction with other processes, to determine the magnitude of the vertical carbon flux in the ocean.The biological pump is the process by which CO2 from the atmosphere is converted by marine photosynthetic organisms into biomass and inorganic carbonate shells, which undergo aggregation when those cells die to form 'marine snow' particles that sink to the ocean depth [3][4][5] .Several processes that vary in magnitude with site, depth and season concurrently affect the sinking of particles and the vertical export of the carbon present in marine snow. These processes