Muon beams of low emittance provide the basis for the intense, well characterised neutrino beams of a neutrino factory and for multi-TeV lepton-antilepton collisions at a muon collider. The international
Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) will demonstrate ionization cooling, the technique by which it is proposed to reduce the phase-space volume occupied by the muon beam. MICE was constructed in a series of steps. Data were taken in 2016 and 2017 in the Step IV configuration which was optimised for studying the properties of liquid hydrogen (LH2) and lithium hydride (LiH). Preliminary results from ongoing analyses will be described.