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Science Magazine Selects SSRL Research as a Breakthrough
of the Year
In late December, Science Magazine listed
its top 10 breakthroughs in
2004, including Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory's (SSRL)
research on the structure of water. A team of researchers,
led by scientists at SSRL and Stockholm University, found that water
molecules clump much more loosely than previously thought. This work,
featured as number 8 of Runner-Up Breakthroughs of the Year for 2004,
revealed detailed information about the nearest neighbor coordination
geometry in liquid water and has implications for multiple fields from
chemistry to atmospheric sciences. For more information, visit:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/306/5704/2013
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5704/2013#water
http://www-ssrl.slac.stanford.edu/structureofwater.html
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/slac/media-info/20040402/index.html
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Structure of First
Coordination Shell in Liquid Water (H. Ogasawara, SSRL)
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In ice, each water molecule
is surrounding by 4 other molecules in a tetrahedral arrangement
(left). The new result on liquid water shows that the molecules
are connected only with 2 others. This implies that most
molecules are arranged in strongly hydrogen bonded rings
(middle) or chains (right) embedded in a disordered cluster
network connected mainly by weak hydrogen bonds. The oxygen
atoms are red and the hydrogen atoms grey in the water (H2O)
molecules. |
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