Water has been found to form ice at room temperature if it is placed between a tiny tungsten tip and a graphite surface. Joost Frenken and colleagues at Leiden University in the Netherlands have found that the water effectively acts like a glue in this situation, even though water is normally thought of as a lubricant. The finding could be useful to researchers studying micro- and nanoelectromechanical systems, which can fail if the friction between the surfaces is too high (Phys. Rev. Lett. 96 166103).
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