An Invisible ‘Demon’ Lurks in an Odd Superconductor

A few years ago, the researchers decided to put a superconducting metal called strontium ruthenate in their crosshairs. Its structure is similar to that of a mysterious class of copper-based “cuprate” superconductors, but it can be manufactured in a more pristine way. While the team didn’t learn the secrets of the cuprates, the material responded […]

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The Hidden Chaos That Lurks in Ecosystems

By the early ’90s, ecologists had amassed enough time-series data sets on species populations and enough computing power to test these ideas. There was just one problem: The chaos didn’t seem to be there. Only about 10 percent of the examined populations seemed to change chaotically; the rest either cycled stably or fluctuated randomly. Theories […]

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