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Using ultracold temperatures and some steel ball bearings, scientists have created a brand-new, bizarre form of ice that has the same density of liquid water.

The ice, known as medium-density amorphous ice, fits into a gap in the annals of frozen water that scientists weren’t sure would ever be filled. Unlike the crystalline ice that forms naturally on Earth, the newly created ice doesn’t have an organized molecular structure. Instead, its molecules are in a chaotic mismatch, more like glass — a state known as amorphous. Other types of amorphous ice have been made before, but they’ve been either much less dense or far denser than liquid water. This new Goldilocks version of amorphous ice is right in the middle, almost exactly matching liquid water’s density, researchers explained in a new study published in the journal Science today (Feb. 2).

“It’s something completely new,” said study senior author Christoph Salzmann (opens in new tab) , a professor of physical and materials chemistry at University College London.Grinding ice

When ice freezes normally on Earth, its molecules stack into an organized crystalline structure. This crystalline ice is one of the weird quirks of H2O, because it floats on liquid water in its solid state rather than sinking. This is due to the relatively big gaps in the crystal structure of water ice, compared with other materials that form denser structures when they crystallize. 

When properly manipulated, though, liquid water can also freeze in a disorganized, amorphous state. The first of these states, low-density amorphous ice, was discovered in the 1930s. It’s made by depositing water vapor on very cold surfaces. This process happens naturally in space, Salzmann said, so low-density amorphous ice may be the most common form of ice in the universe. 

In the 1980s, researchers discovered that they could also make high-density amorphous ice by compressing regular ice at very low temperatures. But no one ever had ever made amorphous ice with a medium density — that is, until Salzmann and his colleagues had a “crazy Friday afternoon idea.” They decided to try ball milling ice. 

A ball mill is a device kind of like a very advanced cocktail shaker. A material is put into a chamber with stainless-steel balls and shaken or turned until the material is ground up. Ball milling is used in many industries, but it’s particularly good at creating amorphous materials and at grinding soft, frozen materials into powders, Salzmann said. 

“We said, ‘Why don’t we ball mill ice and see what happens?'” Salzmann said.Weird properties

The researchers expected that the ball mill would just break the ice crystals into smaller ice crystals. But that’s not what happened. Instead, the tumbling steel balls sheared and compressed the ice crystals, shoving them into a new state of disorganization. The result? Medium-density amorphous ice.

Computer modeling showed that the ice starts in a nice, crystalline state, its hydrogen bonds forming a hexagonal lattice. The random shearing from the ball-milling pushes these hydrogen bonds this way and that, leaving them pointing up and down in a chaotic zigzag.

The new form of ice forms at 77 kelvins, or minus 321 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 196 degrees Celsius). It has some odd properties beyond its density of 1.06 grams per cubic centimeter (0.037 ounces per 0.06 cubic inches).. (Water has a density of 1 gram per cubic centimeter, or 0.035 punches per 0.06 cubic inches.) Among them, Salzmann said, is that when the researchers compressed the medium-density ice and heated it to minus 185 F (minus 120 C), the ice recrystallized, releasing a large amount of heat.

“With other forms of [amorphous] ice, if you compress them and you release the pressure, it’s like nothing happened,” Salzmann said. “But the MDA [medium-density amorphous ice] somehow has this ability to store the mechanical energy and release it through heating.”Related stories—Why is water important?

—Does pure water exist?

—New study turns understanding of ice upside-down

Medium-density amorphous ice might occur naturally on the ice moons of gas giant planets, Salzmann said, where the gravitational forces of the enormous worlds compress and shear the moons’ ice. If so, the mechanical energy stored in this form of ice could influence the tectonics on these Hoth-like moons.

Understanding medium-density amorphous ice could also help researchers understand liquid water better more generally, Salzmann said. Water is odd not only because its crystalline form floats but also because it has other unique properties, like high surface tension and high melting and boiling points. Scientists still debate the nature of water at extremely low temperatures. Any debate now needs to take into account medium-density amorphous ice, Salzmann said.

“A lot of our understanding of liquid water was built on the pillars that there is low-density and high-density amorphous ice,” he said. “How does the medium-density amorphous ice fit into that picture?”

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Tech founders call on Sequoia Capital to denounce VC Shaun Maguire’s Mamdani comments

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Tech founders call on Sequoia Capital to denounce VC Shaun Maguire's Mamdani comments

Almost 600 people have signed an open letter to leaders at venture firm Sequoia Capital after one of its partners, Shaun Maguire, posted what the group described as a “deliberate, inflammatory attack” against the Muslim Democratic mayoral candidate in New York City.

Maguire, a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump, posted on X over the weekend that Zohran Mamdani, who won the Democratic primary last month, “comes from a culture that lies about everything” and is out to advance “his Islamist agenda.”

The post had 5.3 million views as of Monday afternoon. Maguire, whose investments include Elon Musk’s SpaceX and X as well as artificial intelligence startup Safe Superintelligence, also published a video on X explaining the remark.

Those signing the letter are asking Sequoia to condemn Maguire’s comments and apologize to Mamdani and Muslim founders. They also want the firm to authorize an independent investigation of Maguire’s behavior in the past two years and post “a zero-tolerance policy on hate speech and religious bigotry.”

They are asking the firm for a public response by July 14, or “we will proceed with broader public disclosure, media outreach and mobilizing our networks to ensure accountability,” the letter says.

Sequoia declined to comment. Maguire didn’t respond to a request for comment, but wrote in a post about the letter on Wednesday that, “You can try everything you want to silence me, but it will just embolden me.”

Among the signees are Mudassir Sheikha, CEO of ride-hailing service Careem, and Amr Awadallah, CEO of AI startup Vectara. Also on the list is Abubakar Abid, who works in machine learning Hugging Face, which is backed by Sequoia, and Ahmed Sabbah, CEO of Telda, a financial technology startup that Sequoia first invested in four years ago.

At least three founders of startups that have gone through startup accelerator program Y Combinator added their names to the letter.

Sequoia as a firm is no stranger to politics. Doug Leone, who led the firm until 2022 and remains a partner, is a longtime Republican donor, who supported Trump in the 2024 election. Following Trump’s victory in November, Leone posted on X, “To all Trump voters:  you no longer have to hide in the shadows…..you’re the majority!!”

By contrast, Leone’s predecessor, Mike Moritz, is a Democratic megadonor, who criticized Trump and, in August, slammed his colleagues in the tech industry for lining up behind the Republican nominee. In a Financial Times opinion piece, Moritz wrote Trump’s tech supporters were “making a big mistake.”

“I doubt whether any of them would want him as part of an investment syndicate that they organised,” wrote Moritz, who stepped down from Sequoia in 2023, over a decade after giving up a management role at the firm. “Why then do they dismiss his recent criminal conviction as nothing more than a politically inspired witch-hunt over a simple book-keeping error?”

Neither Leone nor Moritz returned messages seeking comment.

Roelof Botha, Sequoia’s current lead partner, has taken a more neutral stance. Botha said at an event last July that Sequoia as a partnership doesn’t “take a political point of view,” adding that he’s “not a registered member of either party.” Boelof said he’s “proud of the fact that we’ve enabled many of our partners to express their respected individual views along the way, and given them that freedom.”

Maguire has long been open with his political views. He said on X last year that he had “just donated $300k to President Trump.”

Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, has gained the ire of many people in tech and in the business community more broadly since defeating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the June primary.

— CNBC’s Ari Levy contributed to this report.

WATCH: SpaceX valuation is maybe even conservative, says Sequoia’s Shaun Maguire

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Samsung expects second-quarter profits to more than halve as it struggles to capture AI demand

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Samsung expects second-quarter profits to more than halve as it struggles to capture AI demand

Samsung signage during the Nvidia GPU Technology Conference (GTC) in San Jose, California, US, on Thursday, March 20, 2025.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics on Tuesday forecast a 56% fall in profits for the second as the company struggles to capture demand from artificial intelligence chip leader Nvidia. 

The memory chip and smartphone maker said in its guidance that operating profit for the quarter ending June was projected to be around 4.6 trillion won, down from 10.44 trillion Korean won year over year.

The figure is a deeper plunge compared to smart estimates from LSEG, which are weighted toward forecasts from analysts who are more consistently accurate.

According to the smart estimates, Samsung was expected to post an operating profit of 6.26 trillion won ($4.57 billion) for the quarter. Meanwhile, Samsung projected its revenue to hit 74 trillion won, falling short of LSEG smart estimates of 75.55 trillion won.

Samsung is a leading player in the global smartphone market and is also one of the world’s largest makers of memory chips, which are utilized in devices such as laptops and servers.

However, the company has been falling behind competitors like SK Hynix and Micron in high-bandwidth memory chips — an advanced type of memory that is being deployed in AI chips.

“The disappointing earnings are due to ongoing operating losses in the foundry business, while the upside in high-margin HBM business remains muted this quarter,” MS Hwang, Research Director at Counterpoint Research, said about the earnings guidance.

SK Hynix, the leader in HBM, has secured a position as Nvidia’s key supplier. While Samsung has reportedly been working to get the latest version of its HBM chips certified by Nvidia, a report from a local outlet suggests these plans have been pushed back to at least September.

The company did not respond to a request for comment on the status of its deals with Nvidia.

Ray Wang, Research Director of Semiconductors, Supply Chain and Emerging Technology at Futurum Group told CNBC that it is clear that Samsung has yet to pass Nvidia’s qualification for its most advanced HBM.

“Given that Nvidia accounts for roughly 70% of global HBM demand, the delay meaningfully caps near-term upside,” Wang said. He noted that while Samsung has secured some HBM supply for AI processors from AMD, this win is unlikely to contribute to second-quarter results due to the timing of production ramps.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s chip foundry business continues to face weak orders and serious competition from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Wang added.

Reuters reported in September that Samsung had instructed its subsidiaries worldwide to cut 30% of staff in some divisions, citing sources familiar with the matter.

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Drones are sending ‘overwhelming amounts’ of drugs into prisons – and could help inmates escape, report warns

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Drones are sending 'overwhelming amounts' of drugs into prisons - and could help inmates escape, report warns

Sophisticated drones sending “overwhelming amounts” of drugs and weapons into prisons represent a threat to national security, according to an annual inspection report by the prisons watchdog.

HMP chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor has warned criminal gangs are targeting jails and making huge profits selling contraband to a “vulnerable and bored” prison population.

The watchdog boss reiterated his concerns about drones making regular deliveries to two Category A jails, HMP Long Lartin and HMP Manchester, which hold “the most dangerous men in the country”, including terrorists.

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Ex-convict: Prison is ‘birthing bigger criminals’

Mr Taylor said “the police and prison service have in effect ceded the airspace” above these two high-security prisons, which he said was compromising the “safety of staff, prisoners, and ultimately that of the public”.

“The possibility now whereby we’re seeing packages of up to 10kg brought in by serious organised crime means that in some prisons there is now a menu of drugs available,” he said. “Anything from steroids to cannabis, to things like spice and cocaine.”

“Drone technology is moving fast… there is a level of risk that’s posed by drones that I think is different from what we’ve seen in the past,” warned the chief inspector – who also said there’s a “theoretical risk” that a prisoner could escape by being carried out of a jail by a drone.

He urged the prison service to “get a grip” of the issue, stating: “We’d like to see the government, security services, coming together, using technology, using intelligence, so that this risk doesn’t materialise.”

The report highlights disrepair at prisons around the country
Image:
The report highlights disrepair at prisons around the country

The report makes clear that physical security – such as netting, windows and CCTV – is “inadequate” in some jails, including Manchester, with “inexperienced staff” being “manipulated”.

Mr Taylor said there are “basic” measures which could help prevent the use of drones, such as mowing the lawn, “so we don’t get packages disguised as things like astro turf”.

Responding to the report, the Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) said: “The ready access to drugs is deeply worrying and is undermining efforts to create places of rehabilitation.”

Mr Taylor’s report found that overcrowding continues to be what he described as a “major issue”, with increasing levels of violence against staff and between prisoners, combined with a lack of purposeful activity.

Some 20% of adult men responding to prisoner surveys said they felt unsafe at the time of the inspection, increasing to 30% in the high security estate.

Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “This report is a checklist for all the reasons the government must prioritise reducing prison numbers, urgently.

“Sentencing reform is essential, and sensible steps to reduce the prison population would save lives.”

Read more UK news:
The human impact of the Post Office scandal
Govt to ban ‘appalling’ NDAs that silence victims

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May: Male prison capacity running at 99%

The report comes after the government pledged to accept most of the recommendations proposed in the independent review of sentencing policy, with the aim of freeing up around 9,500 spaces.

Those measures won’t come into effect until spring 2026.

Prisons Minister Lord Timpson said Mr Taylor’s findings show “the scale of the crisis” the government “inherited”, with “prisons dangerously full, rife with drugs and violence”.

He said: “After just 500 prison places added in 14 years, we’re building 14,000 extra – with 2,400 already delivered – and reforming sentencing to ensure we never run out of space again.

“We’re also investing £40m to bolster security, alongside stepping up cooperation with police to combat drones and stop the contraband which fuels violence behind bars.”

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