A key concept in current fluid dynamics and its applications to biology and technology is a phenomenon known as wetting. Wetting is familiar from everyday life and is simply the ability of a liquid to stay in contact with a solid surface. The wettability depends on the properties of the liquid and the solid and can be characterized by the static…

Optical polarization phenomena are omnipresent in physics, chemistry, biology, and technology. Studying optical polarization is best done through an interdisciplinary approach that combines biology and technology, which usually makes things more interesting to students. Seeing Haidinger's brush for the first time can be an exciting discovery for…

A classic, life science-themed fluid dynamics scenario is blood flow through a constriction. Physics teachers traditionally ask students if the pressure experienced by the blood in the constriction is greater, lesser, or the same as before the constriction. The conventional approach to resolving this question calls upon the equation of continuity,…

There have been many recent articles in this journal highlighting simple demonstrations of a wide variety of acoustic phenomena. In introductory physics courses, sound waves and their propagation through air, and resonance in musical instruments, are covered in detail. However, attention is not usually paid to the active role that our ears play in…

Newton's law of cooling describes an object whose temperature decreases exponentially with time. Because of its many applications, it is a frequent topic of introductory physics labs. In this article, I describe an experiment designed for the freshman year algebra-based physics course that applies this law to answering the question, "Why…

Diffusion is a truly interdisciplinary topic bridging all areas of STEM education. When biomolecules are not being moved through the body by fluid flow through the circulatory system or by molecular motors, diffusion is the primary mode of transport over short distances. The direction of the diffusive flow of particles is from high concentration…

We commonly ask students to compare the results of their experimental measurements with the predictions of a simple physical model that is well understood. However, in practice, physicists must compare their experimental measurements with the predictions of several models, none of which may work well over the entire range of measurements. The…

In a recent article in "Physics Today," Meredith and Redish emphasized the need to make introductory physics courses beneficial for life sciences majors. In this study, a lab activity is proposed to measure the intensity of electromagnetic waves emitted by cell phones and connect these measurements to various standards, biological…

We report here on an effort to involve high school physics students in research on impacts of oil spills on marine mammals at a local university. We believe that the effort described here might be useful to others who would like to involve physics students in research, especially work of an interdisciplinary nature. The students learn to work…

MAUVE (magnitude, answer, units, variables, and equations) is a framework and rubric to help students and teachers through the process of clearly solving and assessing solutions to introductory physics problems. Success in introductory physics often derives from an understanding of units, a command over dimensional analysis, and good bookkeeping.…

When teaching physics, it is often difficult to get biology-oriented students to see the relevance of physics. A complaint often heard is that biology students are required to take physics for the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) as part of a "weeding out" process, but that they don't feel like they need physics for biology. Despite…

The experiments described in this paper have two goals. The first goal is to show how students can perform simple but fundamental measurements of objects moving through simple liquids (such as water, oil, or honey). In doing so, students can verify Stokes' law, which governs the motion of spheres through simple liquids, and see how it fails at…

More schools in the United States have begun teaching physics to ninth-graders, but there continues to be limited evidence that such a change benefits students. Many arguments in favor of Physics First and the inverted sequence of physics-chemistry-biology are based more on the intellectual logic of the sequence than on measured outcomes. Paul…

Bioscience and premedical profession students are a major demographic served by introductory physics courses at many colleges and universities. Exposing these students to biological applications of physical principles will help them to appreciate physics as a useful tool for their future professions. Here I describe an experiment suitable for…

We describe a model of the human eye that incorporates a variable converging lens. The model can be easily constructed by students with low-cost materials. It shows in a comprehensible way the functionality of the eye's optical system. Images of near and far objects can be focused. Also, the defects of near and farsighted eyes can be demonstrated.