“A COMMON PARLOUR TRICK is to float a needle or a coin in a glass of water. “How is this possible?” Pollack asks. “Some of you know that water has an anomalous high surface tension. But it’s not that high, the idea is that it comes from a single molecular layer at the surface.”
http://www.caims.ca/news/2011-nerenberg-lecture-fourth-phase-water-gerald-pollack