Work stoppage possible as WestJet issues lockout notice to maintenance engineers' union
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
Using a device that might be described as a super-duper cocktail shaker, scientists have fashioned a previously unknown form of ice - one that might exist on our solar system's icy moons - in research that sheds light on water's behaviour under extreme conditions.
The researchers said they employed a process called ball milling to vigorously shake ordinary ice together with steel balls in a container cooled to minus-328 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-200 degrees Celsius). This yielded what they called "medium-density amorphous ice," or MDA, which looked like a fine white powder.
Ordinary ice is crystalline in nature, with water molecules - two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, or H2O - arranged in a regular pattern. Amorphous ice's water molecules are in a disorganized form resembling a liquid.
"Ice is frozen water and contains H2O molecules. H2O is a highly versatile molecular building block that can form many different structures depending on temperature and pressure," said University College London professor of physical and materials chemistry Christoph Salzmann, senior author of the research published this week in the journal Science.
"Under pressure, the molecules pack more efficiently, which is why there are many different forms of ice," Salzmann added.
Virtually all ice on Earth exists in its familiar crystalline form - think of the ice cubes in your lemonade. But amorphous ice is by far the most common form of water in space. Scientists have identified 20 different forms of crystalline ice and three forms of amorphous ice - one low density (discovered in the 1930s), one high density (discovered in the 1980s) and the new one in between.
Amorphous ice on Earth may be confined to the atmosphere's frigid upper reaches.
"Almost all ice in the universe is amorphous and in a form called low-density amorphous ice," Salzmann said. "This forms when water condenses onto dust grains in space. Comets are amorphous ice as well. Liquid water requires very special conditions such as on Earth. But there is also evidence for subsurface oceans within some of the solar system's ice moons."
Ball milling is used in industries to grind or blend materials. The researchers used the technique to make about 3 ounces (8 grams) of the new ice, keeping some of it in cold storage.
The question is where this form of ice might exist in nature. The researchers hypothesize that the type of forces they brought to bear on ordinary ice in the laboratory might exist on ice moons like Jupiter's Europa or Saturn's Enceladus.
"We made MDA ice for the first time. So the samples of it in our lab must be the only ones on Earth," Salzmann said.
"We suspect it may exist in some of the ice moons of the solar system. The ball milling induces shear forces within the ice crystals as they collide with the steel balls. In the ice moons, tidal forces from the gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn) are at play and we expect them to induce similar shear forces in the moons' ice shells as during the ball milling," Salzmann added.
The research may facilitate a better understanding of water, a chemical central to life.
"The fact that this new form of ice has a density similar to that of liquid water - and so may be the good model for understanding water without the motion of the liquid - is probably the most important aspect of this discovery," said University of Cambridge chemistry professor and study co-author Angelos Michaelides.
"Since MDA is also a disordered state like liquid water, the question arises if it actually is liquid water but at low temperatures," Salzmann said. "Building on this, MDA provides an opportunity to perhaps finally understand liquid water and its many anomalies."
(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
A lockout notice issued by WestJet to a union representing aircraft maintenance engineers could result in a work stoppage next week.
A man accused of arson in a January Old Strathcona apartment fire is expected to be charged with manslaughter after a body was discovered in the burned building late last month.
A man was denied a $5,000 payout from his brother after a B.C. tribunal dismissed his claim disputing how many kittens were born in a litter.
Three bodies recovered in an area of Baja California are likely to be those of the two Australians and an American who went missing last weekend during a camping and surfing trip, the state prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
Almost a week after all London Drugs stores across Western Canada abruptly closed amid a cyberattack, they began a "gradual reopening" on Saturday.
Quebec provincial police handed out hundreds of fines to Hells Angels members and other supporting motorcycle clubs who met for their 'first run' in a small town near Sherbrooke, Que.
Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
Russia has put Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on its wanted list, Russian state media reported Saturday, citing the interior ministry’s database.
According to an X post by the Transportation Security Administration, officers at the Miami International Airport found the small bag of snakes hidden in a passenger's trousers on April 26 at a checkpoint.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.