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Vanadium atoms (blue) have unusually large thermal vibrations that stabilize the metallic state of a vanadium dioxide crystal. Red depicts oxygen atoms.

For more than 50 years, scientists have debated what turns particular oxide insulators, in which electrons barely move, into metals, in which electrons flow freely.

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The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory concluded a series of workshops this month that engaged scientists from around the country to identify grand scientific challenges and how they might be addressed through application of neutron science.
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Neutron scattering research at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has revealed clear structural differences in the normal and pathological forms of a protein involved in Huntington’s disease.