Researchers at Cambridge University in the UK have discovered that the electron pairs in certain superconductors are held together by "magnetic glue". Superconductivity is the complete loss of resistance to electrical current below a certain temperature. In conventional low-temperature superconductors, the electrons pairs that carry the supercurrent are bound together by vibrations of the crystal lattice known as phonons. However, Gilbert Lonzarich and colleagues at Cambridge have shown that under certain conditions the electrons appear to be held together by magnetic spin-spin interactions (N D Mathur et al. 1998 Nature 394 39).