Why water is weird

View Why water is weird

Presenter: Philip Ball

Published: February 2013

Age: 14-19 and upwards

Views: 1622 views

Tags: water special properties

Type: Lectures

Source/institution: Royal Society of Chemistry


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All life on Earth needs water to survive. But increasingly it seems that the characteristics that make water a solvent for life are also those that make it the weirdest of liquids. Some of these quirks of ‘life’s matrix’ are well understood; others are still being debated, sometimes furiously and controversially.  Author Philip Ball explores what we do and don’t know about water, ending with a consideration both of how its behaviour in living cells can offer clues for new purification technologies and of whether its unique role for life on Earth makes it a prerequisite for life on other worlds.

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