When you step onto an icy sidewalk or push off on skis, the surface can seem to vanish beneath you. For more than a century, scientists have debated why ice stays slippery, even well below freezing.

For centuries, people believed ice was slippery because pressure and friction melted a thin film of water. But new research from Saarland University reveals that this long-standing explanation is ...

It’s an oft-cited science “fact” that ice is slippery due to pressure or friction, but this explanation doesn’t explain why ice’s slippery behavior remains at temperatures where such melting isn’t ...

The reason we can gracefully glide on an ice-skating rink or clumsily slip on an icy sidewalk is that the surface of ice is coated by a thin watery layer. Scientists generally agree that this ...