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In the Feb. 16 SN: Robots roll into the classroom, brain zaps for severe depression, particle colliders of the future, how to walk like a tetrapod, sleepless nights boost Alzheimer's proteins and more.
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News in Brief
Physicists wrangled electrons into a quantum fractal
11/12/2018 - 11:00 Quantum Physics, Condensed MatterPhysicists have created an oddity known as a quantum fractal, a structure that could reveal new and strange types of electron behaviors.
Fractals are patterns that repeat themselves on different length scales: Zoom in and the structure looks the same as it does from afar. They’re common in the natural world. For instance, a cauliflower stalk looks like a miniature version of the full...
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News in Brief
Bizarre metals may help unlock mysteries of how Earth’s magnetic field forms
11/07/2018 - 06:00 Condensed Matter, EarthWeird materials called Weyl metals might reveal the secrets of how Earth gets its magnetic field.
The substances could generate a dynamo effect, the process by which a swirling, electrically conductive material creates a magnetic field, a team of scientists reports in the Oct. 26 Physical Review Letters.
Dynamos are common in the universe, producing the magnetic fields of the Earth...
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News
A new hydrogen-rich compound may be a record-breaking superconductor
09/10/2018 - 07:00 Condensed Matter, Materials, PhysicsSuperconductors are heating up, and a world record-holder may have just been dethroned.
Two studies report evidence of superconductivity — the transmission of electricity without resistance — at temperatures higher than seen before. The effect appears in compounds of lanthanum and hydrogen squeezed to extremely high pressures.
All known superconductors must be chilled to function,...
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Strange metals are even weirder than scientists thought
08/06/2018 - 06:00 Condensed Matter, Materials, PhysicsCuriouser and curiouser: Strange metals are getting a little stranger.
Normal metals such as copper and aluminum are old hat — physicists have a strong grasp on the behavior of the electrons within. But strange metals behave in mysterious ways, and researchers have now uncovered an additional oddity. A type of strange metal called a cuprate behaves unexpectedly when inside a strong...
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News in Brief
‘Time crystals’ created in two new types of materials
05/04/2018 - 07:00 Physics, Condensed MatterIt was only a matter of time.
A weird form of matter called a time crystal has made an appearance in two more types of materials, doubling the number of known time crystal habitats. In a typical crystal, its arrangement of atoms regularly repeats in space, such as the alternating sodium and chloride ions that make up a salt crystal. But time crystals’ patterns repeat themselves at...
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News in Brief
Give double-layer graphene a twist and it superconducts
03/08/2018 - 16:10 Condensed Matter, MaterialsLOS ANGELES — Give a graphene layer cake a twist and it superconducts — electrons flow freely through it without resistance. Made up of two layers of graphene, a form of carbon arranged in single-atom-thick sheets, the structure’s weird behavior suggests it may provide a fruitful playground for testing how certain unusual types of superconductors work, physicist Pablo Jarillo-Herrero of MIT...
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News
Some meteorites contain superconducting bits
03/07/2018 - 17:04 Condensed Matter, AstronomyLOS ANGELES — In the search for new superconductors, scientists are leaving no stone — and no meteorite — unturned. A team of physicists has now found the unusual materials, famous for their ability to conduct electricity without resistance, within two space rocks.
The discovery implies that small amounts of superconducting materials might be relatively common in meteorites, James...
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News
Some high-temperature superconductors might not be so odd after all
12/08/2017 - 07:00 Condensed Matter, Physics, MaterialsA misfit gang of superconducting materials may be losing their outsider status.
Certain copper-based compounds superconduct, or transmit electricity without resistance, at unusually high temperatures. It was thought that the standard theory of superconductivity, known as Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory, couldn’t explain these oddballs. But new evidence suggests that the standard theory...
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Photons are caught behaving like superconducting electrons
10/30/2017 - 15:21 Condensed Matter, Quantum PhysicsLight is a fan of the buddy system. Photons, or particles of light, have been spotted swapping energy with partners. This chummy behavior resembles how electrons pair up in materials that conduct current without resistance, known as superconductors, researchers report in a paper accepted in Physical Review Letters.
Although the photons exchange energy like electrons do, it’s unknown...
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Turning up the heat on electrons reveals an elusive physics phenomenon
09/26/2017 - 12:00 Condensed Matter, PhysicsWhen things heat up, spinning electrons go their separate ways.
Warming one end of a strip of platinum shuttles electrons around according to their spin, a quantum property that makes them behave as if they are twirling around. Known as the spin Nernst effect, the newly detected phenomenon was the only one in a cadre of related spin effects that hadn’t previously been spotted,...