Shaking isn’t the only way to pack grains efficiently.

The time-honoured trick for efficiently packing grains into a container, be they sand in a jar or wheat in a silo, is to give the thing a good tap. But research published today in Nature suggests that alternate cycles of heating and cooling will do the job too. The conclusions could help explain why storage silos sometimes split apart after being exposed to extreme temperatures.

Read the story here.

Shaking isn’t the only way to pack grains efficiently.

The time-honoured trick for efficiently packing grains into a container, be they sand in a jar or wheat in a silo, is to give the thing a good tap. But research published today in Nature suggests that alternate cycles of heating and cooling will do the job too. The conclusions could help explain why storage silos sometimes split apart after being exposed to extreme temperatures.

Read the story here.