There are 1.5 billion cubic kilometres of water on Earth. It covers 70% of our planet’s surface.
And your body is around two thirds water. It’s everywhere.
And all of that water has a secret. This is the strangest chemical in the universe.
Look at the ice in this glass. A solid floating on its liquid.
Unlike everything else, when water freezes, it expands and becomes less dense. Which means
the ice rises to the top.
That simple quirk has shaped the Earth and all the life on it. It's why we have soil.
Over eons, water seeped into giant boulders. It froze and melted. And froze and melted.
Water’s powerful expansion shattered the rocks to pieces, creating the perfect environment
for growth.
And because ice floats, it insulates the water underneath, keeping it liquid. Giving life
a place to survive and evolve, despite the many ice ages on Earth.
All life needs liquid water and ife started at the bottom of the ocean, where minerals
and heat spewed out from inside the Earth and onto the sea floor. Water’s strange
chemistry turned the those raw ingredients into the first biological cells.
And that strange chemistry is working inside you to this day. It nudges the DNA and proteins
inside your cells to do their jobs.
It helps create the protective membranes around cells. It shuffles energy and nutrients around
you. Not only you, but every living thing.
Water is the scaffold that enables the chemistry of life.
And our planet isn’t the only one with water. The solar system is full of it. Comets, are
simply balls of frozen water that hurtle through space. In fact, billions of years ago, they
brought water to the Earth.
Water’s been found on the Moon, on Mars, and there’s oceans of the stuff on the moons
of Jupiter and Saturn.
And where there’s water, there could be life.
But we’ve always known there was something special about water. Nothing else has been
embedded in our cultures for so long, imbued with such holiness and spirituality.
Along with fire, earth and air, water is one of the four classical elements. Every culture
has a myth about floods. Civilisations have never sprung up far from rivers or seas.
And its scarcity in parts of the world today is a profound challenge to our very existence.
Water - this strange molecule - connects you to everyone and everything else and the rest of
the universe.