Hashly Rios pushes Izamar Martinez in a shopping cart through the empty parking lot of Richardson Heights Village during a winter storm on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in ...

When you step onto an icy sidewalk or push off on skis, the surface can seem to vanish beneath you. For more than a century, scientists have debated why ice stays slippery, even well below freezing.

Pressure, frictional heating and a disordered layer of molecules on top of the ice make skating possible ...