An international team of scientists has discovered a new behavior of water under specific conditions, revealing a previously unknown transition from a liquid to a glassy state. This finding, published in Nature Communications, could have important applications in cryopreservation (freezing and storing biological materials), food-freezing technology, and understanding how water behaves in living cells, where it is often restricted to very small spaces. The study used advanced techniques and facilities to explore how water behaves over extremely short time scales — from trillionths of a second to microseconds. To observe this phenomenon, researchers trapped small amounts of water inside very thin layers of lipid-like membranes made from a substance called phytantriol. This method, known as "soft nanoconfinement," prevents water from forming ice. Instead of freezing, the water entered a glassy state — a non-crystalline, rigid form — over a much wider temperature range than previously believed. This glassy state is similar to the way certain materials, like plastics, become rigid when cooled rapidly. A key part of the study involved experiments on the Small Angle and Wide Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS/WAXS) beamline, which helped researchers understand the structure and behavior of the phytantriol-water mixtures at low temperatures. These experiments provided essential structural information that guided the broader investigation into how nanoconfined water transitions from a liquid to a glassy state. Dr. Patrick Züblin from Monash University worked closely with the SAXS/WAXS team at the Australian Synchrotron to improve and optimize low-temperature measurements, reaching as low as -120°C (-184°F). In addition, the team used two instruments at the Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering — the High-Resolution Backscattering Spectrometer Emu and the Time-of-Flight Spectrometer Pelican — to study the movement of water molecules. Neutrons are especially effective for studying hydrogen-containing molecules like water, allowing the researchers to directly track water's molecular motion and determine when it becomes glassy. Dr. Alice Klapproth, a principal instrument scientist, explained that the neutron signal detected by their instruments is mainly influenced by the movement of hydrogen atoms in water. This allowed the team to measure water's dynamics even when it was confined within a complex soft material. By using deuteration — replacing hydrogen atoms with deuterium — the researchers could distinguish the behavior of water from that of the surrounding lipid membranes, a challenge for many other techniques. In this unique state, water becomes rigid and glassy, while the surrounding membranes remain flexible and fluid. The study combined multiple experimental approaches, including measurements at the Soleil Synchrotron in France, low-temperature microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and computer simulations. This comprehensive strategy helped confirm the discovery and provide a deeper understanding of how water behaves under nanoconfinement.