Number 256 (Story #3), January 26, 1996 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE FIRMEST EVIDENCE YET FOR D-WAVE SUPERCONDUCTIVITY has been found by an IBM-Watson team (contact John Kirtley, kirtley@watson.ibm.com). Studying small rings of a thallium-barium-copper-oxide superconductor, the team indirectly detected phase shifts in the electron pairs which travel through this high-temperature superconducting material without electrical resistance. Such phase shifts are not possible in the "s- wave" electron pairs (pairs with no relative angular momentum) that operate in low-temperature superconductors. Previous studies of yttrium-barium-copper-oxide superconductors suggested the presence of phase shifts, but effects owing to the peculiarities of those complex materials could not be ruled out. (D. Tsuei et al., Science, 19 January 1996.)