By Peter Weiss
Zap a layer of water with a strong electric field and, experiments dating back years suggest, some of the liquid freezes, even at comfortable, shirtsleeve temperatures. New experiments indicate that the electric field needn’t be so strong. If this result holds, it would indicate that warm ice could appear on a range of confining surfaces, including the minuscule crevices in ordinary rocks.
Warm-ice formation might also routinely affect molecular-scale activities such as protein behavior and the operation of nanoscale tips used for fine-scale lithography, say chemist Heon Kang of the Seoul (Korea) National University and his colleagues.