Inelastic X-ray scattering studies of the short-time collective vibrational motions in hydrated lysozyme powders and their possible relation to enzymatic function.

High-resolution inelastic X-ray scattering was used to investigate the collective vibrational excitations in hydrated lysozyme powders as a function of hydration level and temperature. It is found that the samples with strong enzymatic function are "soft", in the sense that they exhibit low frequency and large amplitude intraprotein collective vibrational motions on certain length scales. This is not the case for samples with weak or no enzymatic activity.

Deeply-cooled water under strong confinement: neutron scattering investigations and the liquid-liquid critical point hypothesis.

We present an overview of recent experimental investigations into the properties of strongly-confined water below the bulk freezing temperature. Under strong confinement, the crystallization of water is completely suppressed and the behavior of the confined liquid state can be measured at temperatures and pressures that are inaccessible to the bulk liquid. We focus on two phenomena that have recently been discovered in strongly confined water: the density minimum and the fragile-to-strong dynamic crossover.