This talk is about interdisciplinary fluid dynamics that is based on lab experiments as well as terrestrial and celestial observations.
Thermal convection is ubiquitous in nature and can be found in everyday life. This subject has been studied by scientists and engineers for many decades, for its rich dynamics and vast applications. In this talk, I will first discuss an experiment as a free-moving floating boundary interacts with a fluid, which is heated from under and cooled from above. The top boundary is mobile and thermally opaque (poor conductor), causing the coupled system to oscillate. The underlying mechanism is similar to what has been powering the geophysical process of continental drift, as continents interact with the convective mantle of the earth. In the second experiment, a few seemingly impeding partitions or dividers are inserted into a convective fluid, but the heat-flux that passes through is found to be boosted by several times. Theses results are explained and some new directions and phenomena (include the recent total solar eclipse) that extend the classical picture of thermal convection are also discussed.