Drunk scientists pour wine on superconductors and make an incredible discovery

When they tested the resulting materials for superconductivity, they found that the ones soaked in commercial booze came out ahead. About 15 percent of the material became a superconductor for the water mixed with ethanol, and less for the pure water. By comparison, Shochu jacked up conductivity by 23 percent and red wine managed to supercharge over 62 percent of the material. The scientists were pleased, if bemused with their results.

One wonders, did they have a hangover (or regret their conductivity becoming super) the next morning?

BEC: What Is It Good For?

The primary application of atomic BEC systems is in basic research areas at the moment, and will probably remain so for the foreseeable future. You sometimes hear people talk about BEC as a tool for lithography, or things like that, but that’s not likely to be a real commercial application any time soon, because the throughput is just too low. Nobody has a method for generating BEC at the sort of rate you would need to make interesting devices in a reasonable amount of time. As a result, most BEC applications will be confined to the laboratory.

It’s not for lack of trying though. DARPA has a program aimed at applications of BECs to interferometry (Guided BEC Interferometry) which Chad mentions as one application. Research programs I mentioned some time ago are probably sill at it, though not all of them are intended to exist outside the lab.