Shake a can of mixed nuts long enough and the biggest nuts end up on top. Studied since the 1930s but still poorly understood, this phenomenon–called the Brazil nut effect–also occurs in batches of ...

X-ray CT scans reveal that jostling a box of mixed nuts nudges oblong Brazil nuts to point more vertically, allowing the bulky nuts to rest on top as smaller ones sink to the bottom, Maria Temming ...

When Japan’s Hayabusa spacecraft photographed the asteroid Itokawa in 2005, scientists were puzzled by what they saw: The total volume of boulders strewn about its surface were greater than the volume ...

First there was the “Brazil nut effect”, then the “reverse Brazil nut effect” – and now physicists in the UK have cracked the “water-enhanced Brazil nut effect”. For those of you not familiar with ...

Scientists have for the first time captured the complex dynamics of particle movement in granular materials, helping to explain why mixed nuts often see the larger Brazil nuts gather at the top. The ...

Take a container of mixed nuts, shake it and examine the contents. The chances are that the largest nuts, Brazil nuts for example, have risen to the top. This phenomenon is called the Brazil nut ...

April 19 (UPI) --If you're not a fan of Brazil nuts, the initial handful from a bag of mixed nuts can be frustrating. While it may not be a consolation to frustrated snackers, scientists have finally ...

Well, a Brazil nut killed me*, so my feelings are... not positive. * I got better. Technically, I went into respiratory arrest and then some combination of that and the rather large dose of ...

Geophysicists have found that granular segregation helps explain the tendency of riverbeds to be lined by, or 'armored' with, a layer of relatively larger particles. Pop the top off a can of mixed ...