A THIN layer of water is what allows glaciers to slide and ice skaters to glide. But it may not be water as we know it. An investigation of the lubricating liquid that forms when ice comes into contact with a solid shows that the water is super-dense.
While 1 cubic centimetre of normal water has a mass of 1 gram, the same volume of the newly discovered phase would be 17 per cent heavier. Its density is “unbelievable”, says Helmut Dosch of the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany, head of the research group that carried…
