The traditional picture of how liquid water behaves on a molecular level is wrong, according to new experimental evidence

Water, by any measure, is strange stuff

It behaves unlike any other liquid

It has a tremendous capacity for carrying heat—which is why the Gulf Stream keeps Europe warm. Water's solid phase —ice— is less dense than the liquid, which is why ice floats; life on Earth could never have formed if oceans and lakes froze from the bottom up

But despite its prevalence and importance, liquid water is not well understood, and its molecular structure has been the subject of intense debate for decades

The prevailing model of liquid water holds that as ice melts, the molecules loosen their grip but remain generally arranged in the same tetrahedral groups

In the recent study

clear evidence also emerged for the dominance of a second, less defined structure in the mix.

It is amazing that the modern usage of X-rays demonstrates that Röntgen, more than 100 years ago, was on the right path