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.