News tagged with ice crystals

Scientists use rare mineral to correlate past climate events in Europe, Antarctica

The first day of spring brought record high temperatures across the northern part of the United States, while much of the Southwest was digging out from a record-breaking spring snowstorm. The weather, it seems, has gone ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Mar 21, 2012 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Building a beetle antifreeze

Animals and plants have evolved all sorts of chemical tricks that allow them to colonize extreme environments. For species that call Antarctica or the Arctic home, surviving sub-zero temperatures is an essential ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Mar 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 1

The hidden nanoworld of ice crystals: Revealing the dynamic behavior of quasi-liquid layers

(PhysOrg.com) -- A wide range of phenomena depend on ice – specifically, phase transitions during ice crystal surface melting. In this transition, which occurs near the melting point, the ice surface ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Jan 30, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1 | with audio podcast feature

The enduring mystery of snowflakes

Who hasn't caught a snowflake in a mitten and marveled at its starlike detail, and then recalled that no two snowflakes are alike? But these crystals of ice are even more different than one might imagine - ...

Physics / General Physics

created Dec 28, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (7) | comments 1

A simple compound with surprising antifreeze properties

A chemical compound used to stabilize particles in suspension has proved capable of controlling the growth of ice crystals. This finding was made by CNRS/Saint-Gobain researchers in France. Surprisingly, the ...

Chemistry / Materials Science

created Oct 25, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Ice heating up cold clouds

In the Arctic, competition within clouds is hot. The small amount of heat released when water vapor condenses on ice crystals in Arctic clouds, which contain both water and ice, determines the cloud's survival, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Sep 21, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 3

Mission into ice clouds: Q&A with MACPEX pilot Bill Rieke

The Mid-latitude Airborne Cirrus Properties Experiment (MACPEX) is a NASA field campaign that is investigating cirrus cloud properties and the processes that affect their impact on solar radiation. The campaign ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 14, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Finding may end a 30-year scientific debate

A chance observation by a Queen's researcher might have ended a decades-old debate about the precise way antifreeze proteins (AFP) bind to the surface of ice crystals.

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Apr 11, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

Neutron science explains mystery of how Arctic fish's antifreeze proteins work

Neutron scientists have discovered for the first time how 'antifreeze' in arctic fish blood kicks in to keep them alive in subzero conditions. The results could provide benefits for areas as diverse as cryosurgery, ...

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Apr 07, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (4) | comments 0

Scientists create one-dimensional ferroelectric ice

(PhysOrg.com) -- Everyone knows that when water freezes, it forms ice. But a lesser known fact is that there is not one, but many different kinds of ice, depending on the way the ice crystals are arranged. ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Feb 25, 2011 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (17) | comments 14 | with audio podcast feature

Cold skies: Researchers increase our understanding of how ice clouds form

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of atmospheric researchers designed a new computational module that helps scientists better understand how ice crystals form in the atmosphere. The team, including Dr. Xiaohong Liu ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Nov 03, 2010 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Physicists find evidence of new state of matter in a simple oxide

Symmetry is a fundamental concept in physics. Our ‘standard model’ of particle physics, for example, predicts that matter and anti-matter should have been created in equal amounts at the big bang, yet our ...

Physics / General Physics

created Sep 20, 2010 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (25) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

The secret life of water at very low temperatures

The secret life of water just got weirder. For years water has been known to exist in 15 phases -- not just the merry threesome of solid, liquid and gas from grade school science. Now, University of Utah chemists ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Jun 16, 2010 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (17) | comments 1 | with audio podcast

China looks to 'combustible ice' as a fuel source

(PhysOrg.com) -- Buried below the tundra of China’s Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a type of frozen natural gas containing methane and ice crystals that could supply energy to China for 90 years. China discovered ...

Technology / Energy & Green Tech

created Mar 12, 2010 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (23) | comments 13 | with audio podcast report

Antifreeze proteins can stop ice melt, new study finds

The same antifreeze proteins that keep organisms from freezing in cold environments also can prevent ice from melting at warmer temperatures, according to a new Ohio University and Queen's University study ...

Physics / Condensed Matter

created Mar 01, 2010 | popularity 4 / 5 (7) | comments 1 | with audio podcast