Scientists get best look ever at waterlife connection: "Researchers led by Ohio State University physicist Dongping Zhong revealed these interactions for the first time, and report the results in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Proteins are complex molecules that form the main support structure for plant and animal cells, and they also regulate biochemical reactions.

Zhong's project aims eventually to explain how water helps enable life-supporting biological functions such as protein folding or enzyme catalysis. But for now, this early result ends decades of controversy on what happens in the microscopic realm where water and proteins meet. "