Soviet and American labs spent a decade studying a kind of water that didn't exist
Starting in the 1960s, scientists reported that water condensed in narrow glass tubes formed a strange new substance — thicker, slower to freeze, and higher-boiling than ordinary water. Cold War anxiety about a 'polywater gap' drove serious research funding into it. By 1973, careful analysis traced the anomalous properties to contaminants, including sweat and dissolved silica, leached out of the glass and the researchers' own skin.