For more than a century, schoolbook physics has divided matter into neat categories like solid, liquid, gas, and plasma. A ...

New research offers clearer insight into how phase transitions unfold at the atomic scale in real materials. When ice turns into water, the change happens almost instantly. Once the melting ...

A tiny bit of water can ruin melted chocolate, but the right amount can save it. Here is the kitchen science behind seized ...

Researchers are drilling into ice cores to reveal why glaciers are resisting climate change. This discovery might hold the ...

Earth's deep mantle stored enough water in rocks to equal one ocean during our planet's early molten days, helping explain ...

The knots in your shoelaces are familiar, but can you imagine knots made from light, water, or from the structured fluids ...

Earth’s deep interior still shapes the world above your feet. Water trapped far below the surface helps control how rocks ...

Over the course of the 20th century, condensed-matter physicists specializing in high-pressure research identified 20 distinct phases of crystalline ice. These phases were discovered across an ...

Bismuth is known for a few things: its low melting point, high density, and psychedelic hopper crystals. A literal deep-dive into any molten metal would be a terrible idea, regardless of low melting ...

Rheology is the science of material flow and deformation, studying the transformation of fluids to solid-like materials and any state in between. Measurements of flow and deformation are frequently ...

In the dog days of summer, popping a tray of water into the freezer to make ice cubes may seem mundane. But at the smallest scales, we still don’t know a lot about how freezing unfolds. Now, the first ...