You might think that LK-99 was this year's mark of shame on the superconductor world (although things are a bit more complicated than that). But the truth is that that particular blip in the radar of materials science is hardly the front-runner for its 2023 calendar.
Today, Nature announced the retraction of yet another one of Ranga Dias' (and co-authors') papers on room temperature superconductivity — the third mark of scientific suspicion on his work (conducted with the University of Rochester in New York) and that of physicist Ashkan Salamat at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). Scientists are concerned that the field's reputation is being frayed by these hiccups.
