I'm in OKC for the Ruse/Dembski debate, so I thought I'd wade through OU's library. I don't often have the time/access to large libraries that I'd like so it's fun just to browse and see what one can learn. I found a book called Marine Chemistry by Horne which listed the following interesting facts about water (pg 15):
- Water has the highest heat capacity of all solids and liquids except NH3 - this prevents extreme ranges in temperature, and allows heat transfer by simply moving water
- Latent heat of evaporation - highest of all substances
- Latent heat of fusion - highest of all substances except NH3
- Thermal expansion - the temperature of maximum density dereases with increasing salinity - helps control temperature distribution and circulation in lakes
- Surface tension - highest of all liquids - helps in physiology of the cell and other surface phenomena
- Dissolving power - dissolves more substances and in greater quantity than any other liquid - obviously this helps with aqueous biological phenomena
- Dielectric constant - water has the highest of all liquids
- Electrolytic dissociation - small - allows it to be neutral but still contain both H+ and OH- ions
- Transparency - relatively great - important in biological phenomena
- Conduction of heat - highest of all liquids
Anyway, I thought that was interesting.