As tbrownaw points out elsewhere they apparently do have an explanation and maybe even the ability to predict the behavior. Essentially this isn't _that_ far a

As tbrownaw points out elsewhere they apparently do have an explanation and maybe even the ability to predict the behavior. Essentially this isn't _that_ far away from more common things like paramagnetism and diamagnetism where electron orbitals align with an applied magnetic field and the properties of the material change, except in those cases it's their magnetic properties that change. In this case they're saying the speed at which waves/quasiparticles are transmitted through the material changes. I'm not fond of the title but it's an interesting idea.