A magnet is suspended over a liquid nitrogen cooled Take a familiar metal, such as the aluminum foil from the bottom drawer of a kitchen, the mercury you might find in a household thermometer, or the titanium used to build an expensive road bike. Cool it enough, and you will find almost miraculously that electricity can be sent though the metal without losing any of its energy. This effect, known as superconductivity, has tantalized physicists with theoretical weirdness and seduced futurists with potential applications since its discovery in 1911. Some of the applications, particularly in magnetism, have already been realized. A typical MRI machine works because, hidden within its outer casing, electricity is pumped through a superconducting wire maintained 10 times colder than the average temperature of Pluto. The soon-to-be-running Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva would not have been possible without the aid of giant superconducting magnets. Scientists at the High Field Magnet Laboratory in the Netherlands have even used superconducting magnets to suspend a living frog.

Even more exotic and exciting ideas have been dreamed up, such as large-scale lossless power transmission networks or commercially-viable magnetically levitated trains. Many of these have remained elusively beyond the cusp of practicality. This is because most materials become superconductors only in the frigid neighborhood of absolute zero (0-10 Kelvin). A few do have higher transition temperatures. For example, the cuprates, a class of material based on copper and oxygen, become superconductors as high as 133 Kelvin. Unfortunately, these are also brittle, difficult to work with, and bear limited current loads. However, times may be changing. In February of last year scientists discovered a new candidate in their quest for a better superconductor, a material based on iron and arsenic. That’s right– it is possible that one of the most promising candidates for next-generation energy technology is at least partly the same stuff Aunt Abby used to poison Mr. Witherspoon. The new class of material, collectively known as the iron pnictides (pronounced “NICK-tides”), has taken the physics community by storm, inspired more than a thousand research publications and stolen the show last month at the world’s largest annual gathering of materials scientists, the American Physical Society March Meeting.

Is all the hype really merited? Much of the excitement surrounding the iron pnictides is becuase they turn superconducting at anomalously high temperatures, to date at least as high as 56 Kelvin. To be fair, this is still not exactly a high temperature compared to normal everyday experience. Room temperature is about 300 Kelvin. At 273 Kelvin you can get frostbite. At 56 Kelvin the air you breathe liquefies and your lung cavities fill with dry ice. In the world of superconductors, however, a material with a transition temperature of 56 Kelvin is a rock star. This is the second warmest class of superconductor we know about, overshadowed only by the cuprates. A few scientists feel optimistic that the pnictide family’s transition temperatures may yet surpass even those of the cuprates. This would be a tremendous scientific and technological discovery, not simply because it would set a new record, but because it would mean that we now have two families of materials that become superconducting above the boiling temperature of liquid nitrogen (77 Kelvin).

This would be fantastic because cooling materials with liquid nitrogen is both technically easier and less expensive than using the current standard of liquid helium.fydelity backpack Additionally, there may be reason to believe that the new iron pnictides may not have some of the problems that plague other high temperature superconductors. dionite backpackThe cuprates have an annoying habit of spawning tiny electrical whirlpools in the presence of a magnetic field. fido dido backpackUnless these whirlpools, or vortices (as they are technically called), can be pinned in place, lossless power transmission is impossible. chrome orp backpack

While vortices still occur in the pnictides, pinning may prove to be easier than it is in the cuprates.codi backpack warranty Even if we never are able to capitalize on the pnictides, they may have intrinsic scientific value. meeko backpackScientists are baffled at the underlying mechanism that allows a material to be a superconductor above 40 Kelvin. Figuring this out may not ultimately satiate a desire for new technologies, but the simple desire to know is exactly the sort of thing that would make Darwin or Einstein proud.Shop unique and handmade items directly from creative people around the world Popular items for macbook air 11 caseI did not want to hit on this woman. But my friend noticed her checking me out, so he glanced at me and raised his eyebrows. I looked at him, silently saying, “Really?

Do I have to?” He just tilted his head and raised his eyebrows even higher. Nothing more needed to be said — every guy knows what that look means. We can’t back down from a challenge in front of our friends, so I sighed and walked over to her. Keep in mind this woman was a lot older than me, not really my type, and I hate approaching at bars. But among men, pride comes first. Plus, she seemed nice. Ramit: “Hi, I’m Ramit.” Woman: “Hi, I’m (whatever). Ramit: “You look like a vodka soda kind of girl” (I know, I know. I don’t know where this horrific line came from) I was a little surprised at how aggressively she said no, so I decided to have some fun. Ramit: “Aw come on, I’ve been right 100/100 times for the last 5 years. How are you gonna break my streak like that?” Woman: “I’m a recovering alcoholic.” Shortest bar conversation ever. On Friday, I asked you to talk to ONE random person and write down what happened.

Over 800 of you left comments sharing your hilarious, inspiring, and sometimes horrific stories. If you’re on my email list, you got a special email with my 10 favorite comments yesterday. Today, I want to take you to the next level by giving you even more advanced material — plus another challenge. Here’s what I created for you today: Now let me show you what happens on the other end of the spectrum — when you eliminate catastrophes like me being forced to hit on a recovering alcoholic at a bar (??). NEW: I got so many responses that I wrote a huge free guide on improving your social skills that goes into even more detail on the strategies described here.Download “The Ultimate Guide to Social Skills: The Art of Talking to Anyone” now. I have a friend who’s an actress. We were talking about how she’d gone on a bunch of dates and the guys always fell in love with her. They had an instant rapport with her and felt the connection was incredibly deep after meeting her for an hour.

What they failed to understand was that she’s so socially skilled, she’s able to evoke this feeling of awe in most people she interacts with. She’s being totally transparent and ethical, but her social skills are so advanced that they bring out the best version of herself — making her almost irresistible. In other words, having finely honed social skills is like taking a machine gun to a swordfight — FOR LIFE. When you’re armed with amazing social skills, you can go to a party with no alcohol, only knowing 1 or 2 people… and still engage with ANYONE there. You can walk into an interview completely comfortable and nail tough question after tough question. You can contribute ideas in work meetings and know you’ll be taken seriously (and not talked over). When you walk into your boss’s office for a raise, you’re calm and confident instead of nervously wavering and turning into a puddle of goo. Improving your social skills can truly be your most valuable skill.

And that’s what social skills are: skills that can be systematically improved. I love hearing people complain, “Ugh, it’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know.” Then they sit back in their chairs, eat another donut, and never take the time to figure how out how to IMPROVE THEIR SOCIAL SKILLS AND MEET MORE INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE! You, my jackass friend, are a whiny loser who expects the world to work the way YOU want it to — instead of responding to the way it ACTUALLY works. If you’re an IWT reader, you live in a world of what IS, not what SHOULD be. That means recognizing these classic barriers people make about improving their social skills. The truth is, talent alone isn’t enough. It matters, but social skills become increasingly important — and sometimes are worth more than technical skills altogether! For example, I’ve hired people who weren’t the best at their technical skill…but they had excellent communication skills. Elite college admission committees know this.

Improving your social skills means being able to instantly “read” someone and communicate in the BEST possible way — including knowing how much detail to add, using amusing stories from your “Story Toolbox”, and comfortably sharing the very best version of yourself. Ever notice a celebrity on The Daily Show or Conan? They don’t just come up with those stories on the fly. They’re tested, refined, and used only when they’re perfect. Much like Chris Rock practices his jokes until they’re flawless. And as you get better at your social skills, you get more and more opportunities to practice them at higher and higher levels — getting invited to more social events, the pivotal conversation with your boss’s boss, the attractive guy you finally got the courage to talk to. In other words, as your social skills improve, they get increasingly better, faster. They compound, making them one of your most powerful assets that can never be stripped away. But what happens if your social skills are just average?

Sometimes, it seems the people who don’t recognize the importance of social skills are the people who need it MOST: She’ll never know what she missed. How many of us go through this every day? The scary thing is, we’ll never know what we missed out on because of poor social skills. Those opportunities simply cease to exist. There are even more haunting examples of the consequences of having mediocre social skills: What do all these missed opportunities add up to over 10 years? If you learned even ONE technique to improve your social skills — something you can use every day while talking to co-workers, men, women, even random people on the street — what would that be worth? I created a new video for you, a 30-minute crash course on improving your social skills. I didn’t want to just offer you one or two random “tips.” I wanted to go deeper. The video includes easy scripts for starting a conversation, keeping it going, and politely ending conversations (even with ramblers).

I also included a live social-skills teardown about how to make small talk, plus the powerful concept of the Story Toolbox. 1:28   – Watch as I analyze my latest national TV appearance, beat-by-beat 4:07   – The social skills mistakes I used to make 5:44   – How do you start a conversation with a stranger? 8:20   – How do you keep the conversation going? 13:47 – How do you end a conversation politely? 16:57 – Your Story Toolbox: How can make yourself memorable? 20:50 – How do you make small talk? 25:03 – How to win an all-expenses paid trip to NYC for social-skills training (a $5,000 value) In the video at 16:57, I described the Story Toolbox, a Dream Job concept that lets you walk into any interaction — a job interview, bar, or cocktail party — and instantly have 5-10 stories to use at any given moment. Top performers know that by having these stories ready to use — stories that consistently get positive reactions — they can instantly connect with anyone.