This is scientific Americans sixty seconds sites. I'm Christopher Dodd Yata. There's solid and there's liquid and now there's something inbetween called chain melt, the Tomac level you have this interaction and this mix up between liquids and solids Andreas. Herman is a condensed matter physicist at the university of Edinburgh, what he and his team of discovered using computer simulations is that under certain pressures and temperatures potassium can be both liquid and solid at the same time. Specifically, they squashed simulated potassium atoms with really extreme pressures two hundred four hundred thousand atmospheres, that's at least two hundred times greater than the pressure. In the depths of the Mariana trench at that pressure. The atoms form two interlocking crystal lattices add heat to that you don't need too much. Just a little bit above the boiling point of water in one of those lattices begins to melt while the other remained solid and Walla chain melt the. Sales are in the proceedings of the National Academy of sciences Herman says there's no reason to stop it potassium. Either. Half a dozen other elements have this crystal structure to as for what will do with them. But we haven't relooked by application is quite with untold research. I would say one thing's for sure any real world tests will face immense pressure. Thanks for listening for scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Christopher Don. Yata?