We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
🧊 New research shows ice is slippery because of electrical charges — not pressure and friction.
For almost 200 years, the prevailing explanation for ice’s slipperiness was that friction or pressure from a skate, boot, or tire melted a microscopic film of water on the surface, creating a lubricating layer. A new study from Saarland University has overturned that long-standing idea.
Instead, the true cause lies in the electric fields generated by molecular dipoles. When any object contacts ice, the partial charges in its own molecules interact with the highly ordered dipole arrangement of water molecules in the ice crystal. This electrostatic tug-of-war loosens the topmost layer of the ice lattice, transforming it into a thin, disordered, quasi-liquid film—without any need for heat or significant pressure.
Remarkably, this self-lubrication mechanism works even at temperatures approaching absolute zero, where thermal energy is virtually absent and conventional pressure-melting or frictional heating theories completely break down. In those extreme conditions, ice remains slippery simply because its surface molecules are electrically vulnerable.
The discovery fundamentally rewrites our understanding of one of nature’s most familiar phenomena. Beyond settling a centuries-old debate, it has immediate practical implications: from designing better winter tires and non-slip surfaces that actually work on ice, to engineering superior skis, ice skates, and even advanced nanomaterials that perform reliably in cryogenic environments.
By revealing the dominant role of intermolecular electric forces, the research opens entirely new avenues for controlling friction and adhesion at the molecular scale—potentially transforming fields from winter sports equipment to aerospace and nanotechnology.
đź”— Massimo
🇨🇴✔️🇺🇸 — 🇻🇪 The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, officially acknowledges that the United States bombed an ELN factory in Maracaibo, Venezuela, and contradicts Nicolás Maduro, who denies that this happened:
“It turns out that many boats attacked with missiles, as is happening in the seizures we carry out in Colombia or, with our help, outside Colombia, were not carrying cocaine but cannabis.
A paradoxical problem: in the U.S., in many places it is legal. And the Colombian Congress should not have allowed its illegality; it was lost by one vote. That vote has taken the lives of many humble boatmen, and not of a single U.S. consumer or consumer anywhere in the world. Trump is completely wrong. Cocaine to Europe is moving by submarine and container. Cannabis is what is being illegitimately attacked.
The ELN in Catatumbo, and the 33rd Front, must decide whether they are going to compete for cocaine or for Peace. Only about 5% of the cocaine produced in Colombia passes through ...
Farmer Girl:
It is very early. The kind of early where grief still hasn’t had its coffee and hope is absolutely not scheduled yet. The women go to the tomb carrying spices because when someone you love dies, you do the next right thing. You don’t expect miracles. You expect maintenance. You expect a body. You expect final.
They do not get final.
The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. And somewhere nearby, a group of guards is having the worst workday review in Roman history. Imagine being paid to guard death itself and then having to explain to your supervisor that, yes sir, the grave escaped. One minute you’re standing there with a spear, the next minute an angel shows up like lightning, the ground shakes, and you wake up realizing the thing you were guarding walked out. Career change imminent.
Two angels tell the women, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead". Which feels gentle until you realize it’s also Heaven saying, you’re shopping in the wrong aisle. He told you this. You ...
