"Magnetic monopoles were first predicted to exist over a century ago"
Ummmm, that isn't true. The divergence of a magnetic field is zero! ergo, magnetic monopoles do not exist. That is what the physics of 1909 predicted.
this is an interesting quantum effect. more and more, we are seeing that at a quantum level, "shit is whack".
magnetic monopoles do not exist on a macroscopic level. that picture is very misleading, of that hand holding a little crystal. That's not the kind of crystal in this experiment. You use a crystal that is too small to be seen by an optical microscope. You need an electron microscope to see it.
It's interesting, but it's published by the BBC, not the APS?