Flaps perform essential jobs. From pumping hearts to revving engines, flaps help fluid flow in one direction. Without them, keeping liquids going in the right direction is challenging to do.

Ordinarily, if you want liquid to flow in only one direction through a pipe, that pipe needs to be equipped with a flap-type valve – which could fail. Now, however, scientists have created a new type ...

Modern civilization depends on the transport of liquid and gases in systems of pipes, just as humans depend on the transport of blood through arteries and veins 1. As fluids move through pipes, they ...