Assuming that this story checks out, it’s pretty cool:
According to a new study led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and at the University of California, Berkeley, electrons in vanadium dioxide can conduct electricity without conducting heat.
[snip]
For most metals, the relationship between electrical and thermal conductivity is governed by the Wiedemann-Franz Law. Simply put, the law states that good conductors of electricity are also good conductors of heat. That is not the case for metallic vanadium dioxide, a material already noted for its unusual ability to switch from an insulator to a metal when it reaches a balmy 67 degrees Celsius, or 152 degrees Fahrenheit.
Don’t expect anything from this for twenty, thirty years. But if you’re wondering in 2046 just how the room you’re in is staying cool without air conditioning, well: it may be because of this. Also: the stuff’s apparently collected as a by-product of ores processing, which is why heavy industry should never throw anything away without checking around first. Somebody might want that useless gunk that was left over.
H/T Glenn Reynolds.