ice tagged posts

A study co-led by ICN2 reveals that ice is a flexoelectric material, meaning it can produce electricity when unevenly deformed. Published in Nature Physics, this discovery could have major technological implications while also shedding light on natural phenomena such as lightning.

Frozen water is one of the most abundant substances on Earth. It is found in glaciers, on mountain peaks and in polar ice caps. Although it is a well-known material, studying its properties continues to yield fascinating results.

An international study involving ICN2, at the UAB campus, Xi’an Jiaotong University (Xi’an) and Stony Brook University (New York), has shown for the first time that ordinary ice is a flexoelectric material.

In other words, it can generate electricity when subjected to mecha...

The Grand Canyon (a) versus a Martian dendritic river system (b) (Arabia quadrangle; 12 degrees N, 43 degrees E). Slight morphologic differences between terrestrial and Martian comparisons may be attributed to the great differences in age. Scale bar is 60 km long. Credit: Google/Landsat/Copernicus (a) and Google/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona (b). Images adapted from Ramirez and Craddock (2018), Nature Geoscience

The climate of early Mars is a subject of debate. A recent study suggests that the early Martian surface may not have been dominated by ice, but instead it may have been modestly warm and prone to rain, with only small patches of ice...