Ice

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Ice is a solid phase, usually crystalline, of a non-metallic substance that is liquid or gas at room temperature, such as carbon dioxide ice (dry ice), ammonia ice, or methane ice. However, the predominant use of the term ice is for water ice, technically restricted to one of the 15 known crystalline phases of water. In non-scientific contexts, the term usually means ice Ih, which is known to be the most abundant of these solid phases. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white colour, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions. The addition of other materials such as soil may further alter the appearance.

The most common phase transition to ice Ih occurs when liquid water is cooled below 0°C (273.15K, 32°F) at standard atmospheric pressure. It can also deposit from vapour with no intervening liquid phase, such as in the formation of frost.

Ice appears in nature in forms as varied as snowflakes, hail, icicles, glaciers, pack ice, and entire polar ice caps. It is an important component of the global climate, and plays an important role of the water cycle. Furthermore, ice has numerous cultural applications, from ice cooling of drinks to winter sports and the art of (ice sculpting).

The word is derived from Old English ís, which in turn stems from Proto-Germanic *isaz.

For more information about Ice, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

News tagged with ice

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Scientists isolate new antifreeze molecule in Alaska beetle

Chemistry / Biochemistry

Dec 14, 2009 | 5 / 5 (14) | 4

Scientists have identified a novel antifreeze molecule in a freeze-tolerant Alaska beetle able to survive temperatures below minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Unlike all previously described biological antifreezes that contain ...

Kansas scientists probe mysterious possible comet strikes on Earth

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Dec 14, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (15) | 8

It's the stuff of a Hollywood disaster epic: A comet plunges from outer space into the Earth's atmosphere, splitting the sky with a devastating shock wave that flattens forests and shakes the countryside.

Absence of evidence for a meteorite impact event 13,000 years ago

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 08, 2009 | 4.1 / 5 (17) | 13

An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa have found no evidence supporting an extraterrestrial impact event at the onset of the Younger Dryas ~13000 years ...

'Super-river' formed the English Channel

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Dec 02, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (18) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of Anglo-French scientists studying sedimentary deposits in the Bay of Biscay have concluded that Britain and France were separated by a "super-river" during three periods of glaciations, ...

Supervolcano eruption -- in Sumatra -- deforested India 73,000 years ago

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 23, 2009 | 4.5 / 5 (17) | 3

A new study provides "incontrovertible evidence" that the volcanic super-eruption of Toba on the island of Sumatra about 73,000 years ago deforested much of central India, some 3,000 miles from the epicenter, ...

After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 19, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (12) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground ...

Mysteriously warm times in Antarctica

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Nov 18, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (26) | 31

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study of Antarctica's past climate reveals that temperatures during the warm periods between ice ages (interglacials) may have been higher than previously thought. The latest analysis ...

Previously Unknown Volcanic Eruption Helped Trigger Cold Decade

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 29, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (27) | 9

(PhysOrg.com) -- A team of chemists from the U.S. and France has found compelling evidence of a previously undocumented large volcanic eruption that occurred exactly 200 years ago, in 1809.

Volcanoes played pivotal role in ancient ice age, mass extinction

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 26, 2009 | 4.7 / 5 (16) | 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers here have discovered the pivotal role that volcanoes played in a deadly ice age 450 million years ago.

West Antarctic ice sheet may not be losing ice as fast as once thought

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 19, 2009 | 4.1 / 5 (10) | 4

New ground measurements made by the West Antarctic GPS Network (WAGN) project, composed of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, The Ohio State University, and The University of Memphis, suggest ...

Last time carbon dioxide levels were this high: 15 million years ago, scientists report

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Oct 08, 2009 | 3.6 / 5 (63) | 137

You would have to go back at least 15 million years to find carbon dioxide levels on Earth as high as they are today, a UCLA scientist and colleagues report Oct. 8 in the online edition of the journal Science.

Scientists see water ice in fresh meteorite craters on Mars

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

Sep 24, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (16) | 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists are seeing sub-surface water ice that may be 99 percent pure halfway between the north pole and the equator on Mars, thanks to quick-turnaround observations from orbit of fresh ...

Peruvian glacial retreats linked to European events of Little Ice Age

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Sep 24, 2009 | 4 / 5 (5) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new study that reports precise ages for glacial moraines in southern Peru links climate swings in the tropics to those of Europe and North America during the Little Ice Age approximately ...

Europe's first farmers replaced their Stone Age hunter-gatherer forerunners

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Sep 03, 2009 | 4.1 / 5 (10) | 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- DNA study suggests that further waves of prehistoric immigration are waiting to be discovered. Central and northern Europe's first farmers were immigrants with barely any ancestral ties to the modern population, ...

Long debate ended over cause, demise of ice ages -- may also help predict future

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

Aug 06, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (23) | 63

Researchers have largely put to rest a long debate on the underlying mechanism that has caused periodic ice ages on Earth for the past 2.5 million years - they are ultimately linked to slight shifts in solar radiation caused ...