Science News

Hydrogen Hydrogen in a gas discharge tube. Alchemist-hp via WikimediaDepending on your definition of 'metal' Today in relatively obscure but nonetheless meaningful scientific pursuits: two researchers at the Max-Planck Institute claim to have turned hydrogen into metal. That may seem unremarkable, but the fact is hydrogen--being an alkali metal--should exhibit the qualities of a metal under the right circumstances. Yet no one has ever coaxed the universe's most abundant element into showing metallic qualities until now. Perhaps. This all depends on how you qualify the term "metal." There are some boilerplate qualifiers: Metals should conduct electricity and heat somewhat well, they should be malleable to some degree, and it makes sense that they should exist as solids under some circumstances. But though many have tried, none have been able to make hydrogen behave like a metal under these criteria. Mikhail Erements and Ivan Troyan claim in a paper published in Nature Materials that they've done exac