http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. (PhysOrg.com) -- The quest to develop a so-called room-temperature superconductor – one that exhibits lossless electronic transmission – has long fueled both popular and scientific imagination. At the same time, however, ongoing efforts to raise the still-frigid temperatures at which certain materials display superconductivity are making incremental progress. That research – historically based on lattice and/or spin-based interpretations of electron pairing – has now taken a potentially significant step forward thanks to a theoretical view of how electron orbital pairing in a class of materials known as ferropnictides may provide a new road to high transition temperature superconductivity. http://phys.org/news224824520.html Physics Tue, 17 May 2011 06:50:01 EST news224824520