Hi there
One of our regular readers (Hi Ray... and Paul) has requested we put a date on our newsletters, so you'll be receiving this on 31st July, 2023.
This week I've got a review of the Ms. Information film about Dr. Siouxsie Wiles that I saw as part of the Auckland International Film Festival last weekend.
I also take a look at thermography, a service that is offered to women as an adjunct (or alternative?) to mammography.
This past week has also had some intriguing materials science news around the possibility of room temperature (and pressure) superconductivity, with a compound called LK-99 being announced out of a research team in South Korea. The claim is that it works as a superconductor at temperatures below 127° C and at normal atmospheric pressure. Until now the highest temperature superconductor at normal pressure has a critical temperature of 150K - about minus 123° C. Higher temperature superconductors are possible, with one having a critical temperature of -20° C, but at a pressure of nearly 2 million atmospheres!
There's a lot of speculation around whether this is real, being a paper released on a preprint server. There's also a lot of hype around this, and probably well justified. This has yet to be peer-reviewed, and independently replicated. If it is, it could be an exciting development. To be able to comment on it is well beyond my understanding as a science enthusiast, so I won't give it a go. I remember hearing about exciting research into superconductivity back in the mid 1980s, and the expected extrapolations of room temperature superconductivity being just around the corner. Unfortunately, science generally doesn't work that way, and there are often fundamental barriers which have to be overcome that might take years or decades to overcome, if overcoming them is even possible.
The interesting thing about this paper is that it claims that replication should be easy - that the materials are easily available and the process for creating the compound is quite simple. But even if it is reproduced, it might well remain a laboratory curiosity and never pan out into revolutionising industry. It would be fantastic if it did, but it won't be an easy road to get there. This will be an interesting space to watch over the next few weeks and months.
One more thing, it may be that the compound turns out to not be the holy grail of superconductivity, but a new type of material that is superconductor-ish. It may also lead to a lot of further study in this area. Many experts are of the opinion that these developments will happen eventually.
Also this week, committee member Brad MacClure tells us about Kambo, and Bronwyn contributes another great item about the Two-by-Twos sect.