Water in nanoconfined and biological environments : (Plenary Talk, Ngai-Ruocco 2009 IDMRCS Conf.)

We discuss some recent progress in understanding the anomalous behavior of liquid water, by combining information provided by recent experiments and simulations on water in bulk, nanoconfined, and biological environments. We interpret evidence from recent experiments designed to test the hypothesis that liquid water may display “polymorphism” in that it can exist in two different phases — and discuss recent work on water's transport anomalies as well as the unusual behavior of water in biological environments. Finally, we will discuss how the general concept of liquid polymorphism may prove useful in understanding anomalies in other liquids, such as silicon, silica, and carbon, as well as metallic glasses which have in common that they are characterized by two characteristic length scales in their interactions.