Here's Another Use for Ice: Creating Secret Codes
A new study by Chinese, Korean and Czech scientists points to a novel way of writing and storing messages: creating patterns of air bubbles in sheets of ice. While the researchers aren't expecting you to ditch your smartphone, their study speaks to the remarkable properties of frozen water.
'I could see it showing up in a James Bond movie,' said Robin E. Bell, an expert in ice sheet dynamics at Columbia and a former president of the American Geophysical Union. Dr. Bell, who was not involved in the new study, pictured a scene in which secret plans involving a submarine are encoded in an ice cube and are in danger of being discovered. 'So you turn it into a smoothie or something,' she said.
But the idea is more than an exercise in frivolity, said Mengjie Song, an expert in thermodynamics at the Beijing Institute of Technology and one of the lead authors of the new study, published on June 18 in the scientific journal Cell Reports Physical Science.
'It is a totally new method for humans to record information,' Dr. Song said. In his view, there could be 'many, many applications around this work.' For instance, it could be used to help devise more accurate models for de-icing power lines, airplanes and high-speed trains. A clearer grasp of how ice bubbles form could also help scientists better understand the thermal and mechanical properties of bricks made from lunar soil, which could be used to build moon bases. (Scientists have been researching the possibility of fashioning bricks from Martian soil for almost a decade.) Trained to recognize patterns in ice bubbles, artificial intelligence could help study glaciers for clues about past climate patterns, or to identify potential deposits of natural gas.
Researchers acknowledged, however, that much more work would have to be done to make such applications feasible. 'Ice is an ancient substance that permeates every aspect of our lives,' Dr. Song said. 'There are many unsolved mysteries waiting for us to explore.'
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