Life on Earth needs water to survive, but water is a strange liquid with odd properties. Author Philip Ball explores the weird world of water.
Thursday 5 May, 18.00 for 18:30-20:30
The Chemistry Centre, London W1J 0BA
All life on Earth needs water to survive. But increasingly it seems that the characteristics that make water a solvent for life are also those that make it the weirdest of liquids. Some of these quirks of 'life's matrix' are well understood; others are still being debated, sometimes furiously and controversially.
Author Philip Ball explores what we do and don't know about water, ending with a consideration both of how its behaviour in living cells can offer clues for new purification technologies and of whether its unique role for life on Earth makes it a prerequisite for life on other worlds.
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