Nature of Water News

July 26, 2024

Top Headlines

A Rare Form of Ice at the Center of a Cool New Discovery About How Water Droplets Freeze

July 26, 2024 — Researchers explain a new mechanism for ice formation. Ice can form near the free surface of a water droplet via small precursors with a structure resembling ice 0. These are readily formed by ...

A Recipe for Zero-Emissions Fuel: Soda Cans, Seawater, and Caffeine

July 25, 2024 — Engineers discovered that when the aluminum in soda cans is purified and mixed with seawater, the solution produces hydrogen -- which can power an engine or fuel cell without generating carbon emissions. The reaction can be sped up by adding ...

Better Way to Produce Green Hydrogen

July 25, 2024 — Researchers have developed a material that shows a remarkable ability to convert sunlight and water into clean ...

Drawing Water from Dry Air

July 23, 2024 — A prototype device harvests drinking water from the atmosphere, even in arid ...

Latest Headlines

updated 9:05pm EDT

3D-Printed Microstructure Forest Facilitates Solar Steam Generator Desalination

July 23, 2024 — Faced with the world's impending freshwater scarcity, researchers turned to solar steam generators, which are emerging as a promising device for ...

How Pollution May Remain in Water After Oil Spill Cleanups

July 18, 2024 — The way oil drops break up at the water's surface means some oil may not get cleaned up after a ...

Scientists Discover Missing Piece in Climate Models

July 15, 2024 — As the planet continues to warm due to human-driven climate change, accurate computer climate models will be key in helping illuminate exactly how the climate will continue to be altered in the years ...

Producing Hydrogen and Fertilizer at the Same Time

July 15, 2024 — This new concept could allow the needs of previously separate industries to be combined: the production of hydrogen and the production of ...

New Solutions to Keep Drinking Water Safe as Pesticide Use Skyrockets Worldwide

July 11, 2024 — Water scientists have proposed a more effective method of removing organic pesticides from drinking water, reducing the risk of contamination and ...

Bacteria Form Glasslike State

July 11, 2024 — Dense E.coli bacteria have several similar qualities to colloidal glass. Colloids are substances made up of small particles suspended within a fluid, like ink for example. When these particles become ...

Muscle Machine: How Water Controls the Speed of Muscle Contraction

July 11, 2024 — The flow of water within a muscle fiber may dictate how quickly muscle can contract, according to a new ...

It Takes a Cool Microscope and Antifreeze to Really Look at Ice

July 9, 2024 — Ice in nature is surrounded by liquid most of the time, and therefore it is key to understand how ice and liquid interact. A new study has now directly observe the precise shape of ice at the ...

Ionic Liquids: 'Don't Shake It'

July 5, 2024 — Chemists have develop innovative ionic liquid synthesis and purification ...

Mechanism of Bio-Inspired Control of Liquid Flow

July 3, 2024 — The more we discover about the natural world, the more we find that nature is the greatest engineer. Past research implied that liquids can only be transported in fixed direction on species with ...

Small, Adsorbent 'Fins' Collect Humidity Rather Than Swim Through Water

June 26, 2024 — Clean, safe water is a limited resource and access to it depends on local bodies of water. But even dry regions have some water vapor in the air. To harvest small amounts of humidity, researchers ...

Controlling Electronics With Light: The Magnetite Breakthrough

June 21, 2024 — Researchers have discovered that by shining different wavelengths (colors) of light on a material called magnetite, they can change its state, e.g. making it more or less conducive to electricity. ...

Much of the Nord Stream Gas Remained in the Sea

June 19, 2024 — Much of the methane released into the southern Baltic Sea from the Nord Stream gas pipeline has remained in the water. This is shown by measurements taken by researchers from the University of ...

Researchers Create New Class of Materials Called 'Glassy Gels'

June 19, 2024 — Researchers have created a new class of materials called 'glassy gels' that are very hard and difficult to break despite containing more than 50% liquid. Coupled with the fact that glassy ...

A Liquid Crystal Source of Photon Pairs

June 14, 2024 — Spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), as a source of entangled photons, is of great interest for quantum physics and quantum technology, but so far it could be only implemented in solids. ...

Nanosized Blocks Spontaneously Assemble in Water to Create Tiny Floating Checkerboards

June 13, 2024 — Researchers have engineered nanosized cubes that spontaneously form a two-dimensional checkerboard pattern when dropped on the surface of water. The work presents a simple approach to create complex ...

Frozen? Let It Melt With Efficient New De-Icer Friendly to the Environment

June 7, 2024 — A research team has found a de-icing mixture with high effectiveness and low environmental impact after using machine learning to analyze ice melting mechanisms of aqueous solutions of 21 salts and ...

Perturbations Simplify the Study of 'Super Photons'

June 7, 2024 — Thousands of particles of light can merge into a type of 'super photon' under suitable conditions. Physicists call such a state a photon Bose-Einstein condensate. Researchers have now shown ...

Flow Research on the Outskirts of Space

June 4, 2024 — For years, various models have been developed to describe an important class of mixing effects that occur, for example, in the flow in a chemical reactor. Experimental validation, however, has lagged ...

The Unexpected Connection Between Brewing Coffee and Understanding Turbulence

June 3, 2024 — Using unconventional statistical mechanics to understand fluid dynamics, a professor helped solve a 150 year old physics problem of how turbulent fluids move through a ...

Performance of Eco-Friendly Cooling Applications Enhanced

May 28, 2024 — Researchers have developed a sustainable and controllable strategy to manipulate interfacial heat transfer, paving the way for improving the performance of eco-friendly cooling in various ...

Harnessing Green Energy from Plants Depends on Their Circadian Rhythms

May 28, 2024 — Plant hydraulics drive the biological process that moves fluids from roots to plant stems and leaves, creating streaming electric potential, or voltage, in the process. A study closely examined the ...

Breakthrough Discovery Uses Engineered Surfaces to Shed Heat

May 24, 2024 — Splash a few drops of water on a hot pan and if the pan is hot enough, the water will sizzle and the droplets of water seem to roll and float, hovering above the surface. The temperature at which ...

Expanding on the Fundamental Principles of Liquid Movement

May 20, 2024 — We are living in a world surrounded by liquid and flow, and understanding the principles that govern its movement is vital in our high-tech world. Through mathematical modeling and experimentation, ...

Airborne Technology Brings New Hope to Map Shallow Aquifers in Earth's Most Arid Deserts

May 16, 2024 — The new technique will map the top of the aquifer, called the 'water table,' spanning areas as large as hundreds of kilometers using a radar mounted on a high-altitude aircraft. According ...

Scientists Use Generative AI to Answer Complex Questions in Physics

May 16, 2024 — Researchers used generative AI to develop a physics-informed technique to classify phase transitions in materials or physical systems that is much more efficient than existing machine-learning ...

'Forever Chemicals' Found to Rain Down on All Five Great Lakes

May 16, 2024 — Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or 'forever chemicals,' have become persistent pollutants in the air, water and soil. Because they are so stable, they can ...

Studying Bubbles Can Lead to More Efficient Biofuel Motors

May 15, 2024 — By studying how bubbles form in a drop of biodiesel, researchers can help future engines get the most energy out of the ...

Petroleum, Chlorine Mix Could Yield Harmful Byproducts

May 14, 2024 — A new study shows that chlorine mixed with petroleum in water can potentially produce inadvertent byproducts harmful to human ...

Getting Dirty to Clean Up the Chemical Industry's Environmental Impact

May 9, 2024 — The global chemical industry is a major fossil fuel consumer and climate change contributor; however, new research has identified how the sector could clean up its green credentials by getting ...