In this talk, I will first review the singularity formation problem in incompressible fluid dynamics, describing how particle transport poses the main challenge in constructing blow-up solutions for the incompressible 3d Euler equations. I will then outline a new mechanism that allows us to overcome the effects of particle transport, leveraging the instability seen in the classical Taylor--Couette experiment. Using this mechanism, we construct the first swirl-driven singularity for the incompressible Euler equations in R^3. This is joint work with Tarek Elgindi (Duke University).