In my fourth year here at Western, I took a fluid dynamics course with John deBruyn.  Many of the topics we touched on fascinated me, but nothing quite amazed me like surface tension.  During the course, I studied how the basilisk and different insects walk on water.  While the basilisk, or Jesus lizard, uses a large force and surface area to keep him running on the water’s surface, insects, such as the water strider, rely on surface tension to keep them afloat.

Over a year later, thousands of kilometres away, surface tension still boggles my mind.  I took this picture of menisci on rocks near Resolute Bay on the beach of the Northwest Passage.

There were also small rocks floating on the surface of the water, drifting in and out with the waves.  Since Posterous does not approve of my file format, the video can be seen on YouTube here: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzvS5nDxb24