There was some excitement (to those that find these things exciting!) in 2009 when "monopoles" were observed in so called "spin ices" [www.sciencemag.org]

These monopoles are not true monopoles though, by which I mean the theoretically possible fundamental particle, which may or may not exist (but the search for which has resulted in insight to other fields such as cosmological expansion).

Jonny

The path to good scholarship is paved with imagined patterns. - David M Raup