The conventional view among scientists about how ice forms is that it begins from seeds in which water molecules are packed together in a hexagonal structure and maintains this structure as it grows.

In chemistry, structure is everything. Compounds with the same chemical formula can have different properties depending on the arrangement of the molecules they’re made of. And compounds with a ...

Cubic core: what is the crystal structure of iron at the centre of the Earth? (Courtesy: shutterstock/Johan Swanepoel) A long-standing debate about the structure of solid iron at the centre of the ...

A team of Chinese scientists may have cracked the secret behind the strange Canyon Diablo diamonds. Hexagonal in form rather than cubic, the process behind how these diamonds formed has, until now, ...

Scientists have used a mix of physical and chemical properties to bend salt into hexagonal crystals for the first time ever. They formed the thin layer of crystalline salt on a substrate (foundation ...

Currently, diamond is regarded to be one of the hardest and most scratch-resistant natural materials in the world. Most diamonds found in nature and often used in jewelry display a cubic crystal ...