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An international team of scientists uncovered exotic quantum properties hidden in magnetite, the oldest magnetic material known to mankind. The study reveals the existence of low-energy waves that indicate the important role of electronic interactions with the crystal lattice. This is another step to fully understand the metal-insulator phase transition mechanism in magnetite, and in particular to learn about the dynamical properties and critical behavior of this material in the vicinity of the transition temperature.

Magnetite (FeO₄) is a common mineral, whose strong magnetic properties were already known in ancient Greece. Initially, it was used mainly in compasses, and later in many other devices, such as data recording tools. It is also widely applied to catalytic processes. Even animals benefit from the properties of magnetite in detecting magnetic fields – for example, birds are known to use it in navigation.

Physicists are also very interested in magnetite because around a temperature of 125 K it shows an exotic phase transition, named after the Dutch chemist Verwey. This Verwey transition was also the first phase metal-to-insulator transformation observed historically. During this extremely complex process, the electrical conductivity changes by as much as two orders of magnitude and a rearrangement of the crystal structure takes place. Verwey proposed a transformation mechanism based on the location of electrons on iron ions, which leads to the appearance of a periodic spatial distribution of Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺ charges at low temperatures.

As countries around the world begin lifting pandemic lockdowns, researchers are entering a new phase of work — donning masks with their lab coats, staggering hours in laboratory spaces and taking shifts on shared instruments. Some universities have created detailed plans to track and test staff, and many have limited the capacity of indoor spaces and the flow of people through hallways and entrances. For others, post-lockdown plans are still taking shape. And whereas some universities have worked in lockstep with governments to formulate safety plans, others have charted their own paths.

As scientists around the world return to work, they’re encountering new safety rules and awkward restrictions — and sometimes writing the protocols themselves.

“What you see in these diseases of aging is often the sort of unintended consequences of a system that was absolutely awesome for the young, at the expense of the old.” — Ned David.

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Batteries that use a sodium-ion chemistry rather than the commonplace lithium-ion could offer a number of advantages, owing to the cheap and abundant nature of the element. Scientists at Washington State University have come up with a design billed as a potential game changer in this area – a sodium-ion battery offering a comparable energy capacity and cycling ability to some lithium-ion batteries already on the market.

In a way, sodium-ion batteries function just like lithium-ion batteries, generating power by bouncing ions between a pair of electrodes in a liquid electrolyte. One of the problems with them in their current form, however, is that while this is going on inactive sodium crystals tend to build up on the surface of the negatively-charged electrode, the cathode, which winds up killing the battery. Additionally, sodium-ion batteries don’t hold as much energy as their lithium-ion counterparts.

“The key challenge is for the battery to have both high energy density and a good cycle life,” says Washington State University’s Junhua Song, lead author on the paper.

Bitcoin has been struggling to break over the $10,000 per bitcoin level since its highly-anticipated supply squeeze —but that could be about to change.

The bitcoin price, up around 30% since the beginning of the year and on track to be one of the year’s best performing assets, has swung wildly over the last few months.

Now, one of the most closely-watched bitcoin analysts, an anonymous strategist who claims to be a member of an institutional investment team that manages around $100 billion in assets, has released an update to his so-called stock-to-flow model, suggesting the bitcoin price could be about to surge to around $100,000.

In an incredible feat of remote engineering, NASA has fixed one of the most intrepid explorers in human history.

Thanks to some (very) remote engineering work by NASA, the intrepid explorer’s science mission is back on.

Once considered an unimportant curiosity, Z-DNA is now recognized to provide an on-the-fly mechanism to regulate how an RNA transcript is edited.

The Infant Gut Microbiome and Probiotics that Work.

SpaceX Crew Dragon astronauts say the ship is living up to high-tech expectations — but there was one rougher moment.