Enlarge / A related species of Fusarium.Wikimedia Commons
While it may be the reason behind tires skidding, pipes bursting, and closed roads making traffic a nightmare, ice doesn’t always form as easily as it seems. It often gets an assist from proteins made by fungi.
Never mind the common thinking that ice forms at 0° C (32° F). Though this is water’s freezing point, pure water will only freeze when temperatures plummet as low as minus 46° C (minus 50.8° F). So why does it usually freeze at zero anyway? Organisms such as bacteria, insects, and fungi produce proteins known
→ Continue reading at Ars Technica