Researchers Rearrange Nuts In Low Gravity
Mixed Nuts, Arranged By Weight Melchoir, WikipediaOutcome: your Chex Mix will be better dispersed on Mars. You may or may not have heard of the Brazil nut effect, but you've probably experienced it: open up a can of mixed nuts (or box of muesli, or any other heterogenous mixture of differently sized foodstuffs) and discover that the biggest items (e.g. Brazil nuts) have all migrated to the top. More scientifically, that process is called granular convection, and understanding it has applications far beyond the snack food industry, including developing avalanche safety systems (so you can ride out that avalanche in the top layers of snow) or in geology. Physicists have a pretty good idea how the Brazil nut effect works, and manufacturers choose shapes of equipment and packaging to limit its impact on food production. But woe betide the space tourist who wishes to eat a homogeneously distributed packet of...