At a busy street crossing, people wait for the signal to change. When one person steps out first, others soon follow. Scientists in Amsterdam have found that this same kind of behavior happens at a ...

For years, researchers have provided contradictory evidence about the “premelting film” of ice, its thickness and whether it ...

The ice in a domestic freezer is remarkably different from the single crystals that form in snow clouds, or even those formed ...

Physics experiments have changed the world irrevocably, altering our reality and enabling us to take gigantic leaps in technology. From ancient times to now, here's a look at some of the greatest ...

Whenever you get around to doing dishes, how easily water slides down a dirty plate depends on how uneven and crusty the plate’s surface is. At the nanoscale, however, where surface features can be ...

When two sides of a geological fault grind past one another during an earthquake, the friction can heat the rocks to at least 1,250 ºC. In their laboratory at the National institute of Geophysics and ...