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Scientists have been pursuing a reliable way to prepare ice crystal surfaces in the laboratory since at least the 1930s. Now, a chemist has discovered a way to select specific surfaces of single-crystal ice for study, a long-sought breakthrough that could help researchers answer essential questions about climate and the environment.
The ability to select and study crystal ice faces could help answer important questions, such as how vapor interacts with ice crystals to produce rain, which pollutants attach themselves to ice crystals and why no two snowflakes are alike. Those answers could have implications for important issues such as seeding rain clouds and protecting the environment.Image credit: Mary Jane Shultz, Tufts University
