These beads seem to levitate, defy gravity and jump out of the beaker. But how and why do they act like this? We met up with Steve Mould, the science guy from Britain’s Brightest, to explore the science behind the “self siphoning beads” – also known as “Newton’s Beads”.

To get a closer look at the phenomenon, we filmed them in slow motion to try to work out what exactly was happening, and how the behaviour changes with height.

[Earth Unplugged]