How molecules are linked together to form liquid water is the subject of a groundbreaking study due to appear Thursday, Apr. 1 in Science magazine’s advance publication web site Science Express. The investigation entitled The Structure of the First Coordination Shell in Liquid Water summarizes the results of an international collaboration headed by researchers at Stockholm University and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. The international team of researchers, which also involved the BESSY synchrotron lab in Berlin, Linköping University and the University of Utrecht, found that water molecules clump together much more loosely than previously thought. The authors propose that this indicates an unknown structure in the liquid, chains or rings or similar – a highly controversial statement which could signify a breakthrough in understanding liquid water.
Water was already in antiquity recognized as one of the fundamental elements in Nature. It is the most abundant substance on earth, and all known forms of life need it to exist. Yet what water really is – at least in its liquid form – is still, to a large extent, a mystery.
Water has a simple chemical formula, H2O, i.e. it consists of two hydrogens and one oxygen. In spite of the apparent simplicity, water is a complex liquid with many unusual properties and many years of intense research have still left much to learn. Even a fundamental question, such as whether or not the liquid has some structure has not been possible to answer directly until now. That is, do the molecules organize themselves in particular ways or is water completely disordered?
Agneta Paulsson | alfa
Do microplastics harbour additional risks by colonization with harmful bacteria?
05.04.2018 | Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung Warnemünde
Rutgers-led innovation could spur faster, cheaper, nano-based manufacturing
14.02.2018 | Rutgers University
Study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces is the outcome of an international effort that included teams from Dresden and Berlin in Germany, and the US.
Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) together with colleagues from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the University of Virginia...
Novel highly efficient and brilliant gamma-ray source: Based on model calculations, physicists of the Max PIanck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg propose a novel method for an efficient high-brilliance gamma-ray source. A giant collimated gamma-ray pulse is generated from the interaction of a dense ultra-relativistic electron beam with a thin solid conductor. Energetic gamma-rays are copiously produced as the electron beam splits into filaments while propagating across the conductor. The resulting gamma-ray energy and flux enable novel experiments in nuclear and fundamental physics.
The typical wavelength of light interacting with an object of the microcosm scales with the size of this object. For atoms, this ranges from visible light to...
Stable joint cartilage can be produced from adult stem cells originating from bone marrow. This is made possible by inducing specific molecular processes occurring during embryonic cartilage formation, as researchers from the University and University Hospital of Basel report in the scientific journal PNAS.
Certain mesenchymal stem/stromal cells from the bone marrow of adults are considered extremely promising for skeletal tissue regeneration. These adult stem...
In the fight against cancer, scientists are developing new drugs to hit tumor cells at so far unused weak points. Such a “sore spot” is the protein complex...
In an article that appears in the journal “Review of Modern Physics”, researchers at the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics (LAP) assess the current state of the field of ultrafast physics and consider its implications for future technologies.
Physicists can now control light in both time and space with hitherto unimagined precision. This is particularly true for the ability to generate ultrashort...
Anzeige
Anzeige
Invitation to the upcoming "Current Topics in Bioinformatics: Big Data in Genomics and Medicine"
13.04.2018 | Event News
Unique scope of UV LED technologies and applications presented in Berlin: ICULTA-2018
12.04.2018 | Event News
IWOLIA: A conference bringing together German Industrie 4.0 and French Industrie du Futur
09.04.2018 | Event News
19.04.2018 | Materials Sciences
Electromagnetic wizardry: Wireless power transfer enhanced by backward signal
19.04.2018 | Physics and Astronomy
Ultrafast electron oscillation and dephasing monitored by attosecond light source
19.04.2018 | Physics and Astronomy