2024 cryo-AFM + 2025 “cold self-lubrication” updates

26:15>> Um it hasn't stopped there because that was done at, you know, very very low temperatures. >> Now, how do we bridge the gap, right? Because this is clearly happening at all all temperature scales. And that kind of theory only really works for this very specific temperature. >> Ah, that's interesting. >> So, it's not done. >> So, it's not universally true. Mhm. >> It goes back to our there's a difference between what happens at -3° versus -30. >> And so the AFM tuning fork solution and that how the slimy water layer was being created is true at uh >> very low temperatures. >> At very low temperatures, >> not like the -2G3 that we see in winter sports, right? But it's a clue at least

26:57as to as to why that part works. It's like It's like the game Clue where we found the candelier in the kitchen. >> Uh, and it has some fingerprints on it, but we've not yet done the the fingerprint analysis. >> Yeah. Yeah. [laughter] Exactly. And then in 2024, there was another paper, Hong and others in nature. What they did was atomic scale visualization using cryogenic AFM. So now they upped their AFM game and they were doing atomic scale resolution all the way down to like angstrom level. >> Wow. >> Okay. And what they found was there's this thing called premelting

27:37which initiates a kind of defective boundary because the ice is not going to be a clean hexagonal lice, right? there's going to be defects where like there's this domain and then it's like kind of interacting with this other domain of hexagons, but it's the hexagons don't like completely line up. [snorts] And what what that does is where those things don't line up, you get this atomic defect that compounds to create that layer. >> Got it. >> Of like weird water. >> Okay. So that was in 2024. 2025 there was another paper with Attilla and Muser they proposed something called cold self lubrication at very low temperature. So

28:17now they're going to -40° and they're trying to say that there's some mechanical shear stress. So when you have a lattice the shear is like how much you like sort of warp it this way to like contort it. And when you have that shear stress that creates the disordered amorphous solid-like layer that then becomes this viscous lubricant between our stuff. So as you can see like it's it's still a very ongoing um field of research. 2025 was that last paper. 2024 was the paper right after. 2019 was this AFM paper that we >> which was kind of like the really initial like an initial >> the initial clue that has led us down a like a path to a solution. It's just 6

29:00years ago. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and people are still investigating it. I mean it's got in incredible importance for our society. Right. If we just talk about climate modeling and climate change, which we're going to get to later on in the in the episode, um, if water is a hundred times