This Article describes the use of capillary pressure to initiate and control the rate of spontaneous liquid-liquid flow through microfluidic channels. In contrast to flow driven by external pressure, flow driven by capillary pressure is dominated by interfacial phenomena and is exquisitely sensitive to the chemical composition and geometry of the fluids and channels. A stepwise change in capill...

The concept of a 'deformable arm scale' (completely different from a traditional rigid arm balance) is theoretically introduced and experimentally validated. The idea is not intuitive, but is the result of nonlinear equilibrium kinematics of rods inducing configurational forces, so that deflection of the arms becomes necessary for equilibrium, which would be impossible for a rigid system. In pa...

We use age distributions of sea otters (Enhydra lutris) found dead on beaches of western Prince William Sound, Alaska, between 1976 and 1998 in conjunction with time-varying demographic models to test for lingering effects from the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Our results show that sea otters in this area had decreased survival rates in the years following the spill and that the effects of the ...

Recent supply shocks in the Gulf of Mexico—including hurricanes, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the seasonal appearance of a large dead zone of low oxygen water (hypoxia)—have raised concerns about the economic viability of the U.S. shrimp fishery. The ability for U.S. shrimpers to mediate supply shocks through increased prices hinges on the degree of market integration, both among shrimp...

this study has been investigated, the effects of three different polar polyacrylamides (anionic, cationic, and nonionic) on asphaltene deposition in porous media. all experiments were carried out in various dead oil flow rates (0.2, 0.1 and 0.02 cc/min) and different polymer concentrations (500, 2500, 4000 ppm). the results indicated that asphaltene precipitation was affected by the presence of...