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Upstate researcher solves ice cube mystery

Eleven ice cubes came out just fine, but this one had....a stalagmite?

Eleven ice cubes came out just fine, but this one had....a stalagmite?


"This is meant only in good fun," I began my inquiry to one of Upstate's leading cancer researchers, Juntao Luo PhD.

In emptying an ice tray one recent morning, I came across this bizarre ice cube, with a cylinder or thin tower building upward from its base like a stalagmite you would find growing upward from the floor of a cave. I posted a picture of the mystery ice cube on Facebook, receiving only silly suggestions of the cause. So, I took a stab at getting a real answer from a real scientist. Dr. Luo was fresh on my mind, as he had recently consented to appearing in the magazine I edit, Upstate Health. He's busy creating new ways to get cancer drugs into tumors -- but he kindly took a short break to ponder my ice cube mystery.

If there was no water dripping from the top of the freezer -- and I checked that there wasn't -- Luo theorized that some "impurity or dust in the water induced a highly ordered crystal of water." The vapor water molecules continuously grew at that one site, in that same direction. "Eventually it forms a stalagmite," he said.

So...I think that means the ice tray needs cleaning!

Read about Dr. Luo's exciting research on pages 12-13 of Upstate Health

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