- RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
High-speed cameras can observe the strange behaviour of a cornstarch–water mixture.
Oobleck, a substance made from ordinary household ingredients, is an example of a shear-thickening fluid, having the properties of both a solid and a liquid. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy
The ingredients for this study are probably already in your kitchen. To better understand a mysterious class of fluids, researchers tested how a concoction of cornstarch and water called oobleck — a staple of classroom experiments — behaves when dropped onto a surface1.
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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01109-3
