"Ricequakes": How Breakfast Cereal is Helping Scientists Understand the Physics Behind Collapsing Dams

The crackle of wet rice puffs is more than snappy advertising strategy: Pouring milk into a bowl of cereal might help shed light on the collapse of ice shelves and dams of compacted earth, a new study finds. Image Credit: Francois Guillard and Itai Einav Brittle, porous materials are prone to suddenly crumbling when they encounter high pressure or are soaked in liquids, an effect linked with the collapse of rockfill dams and the formation of sinkholes. However, it was uncertain what happens when...