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Comment by sanxiyn | Hacker News Reader

World first replication was done by Iris Alexandra using her own accelerated process and there is no way Varda Space could have beaten her.

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I don't understand why people are attaching any weight to Alexandra's claims. AFAIK, it's a pseudonymous account that has provided no evidence that couldn't be easily faked. You might object that the evidence provided by the non-pseudonymous scientists could also be faked, but the key distinction is that they're attaching real, professional identities to their claims. There are reputational consequences to making things up. They have skin in the game. A pseudonymous account doesn't. Why should we believe them?

> I don't understand why people are attaching any weight to Alexandra's claims.

Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug.

Not quite pseudonymous - she says her name is Iris Alexandria and that she's affiliated with the IGB in Russia and is now collaborating with the MEPI in producing more and measuring samples and that this is the reason why she doesn't publish any data as it's not hers and is bound for a publication, and that some of the researchers there are familiar with alternative superconducting theories which LK99's late PI was basing off on.

Of course it could all be faked, but she is prima facie attaching real, professional identities to her claims.

A worthless replication. Grainy photos of supposed samples floating. When asked for videos she just insulted the people asking for videos to no end and to date has not provided any. No measurements provided either.

It wasn't even a replication by their own admission!

https://nitter.net/iris_IGB/status/1685774956330635264#m

They won't publish a preprint on their version because they think it would be "unfair"!

https://nitter.net/iris_IGB/status/1687020011548770304#m

Every post this person makes throws up more red flags. I have no idea why people believe any of their claims besides "haha anime girl"

I think you're misinterpreting the second tweet, I read it as "I can't publish a preprint myself since I'm not the only one working on it now, and my team doesn't feel our work is ready for publication". Of course it can still be bullshit but it makes sense that a biochemist doesn't have the means to test this material and that a credible physics institute wouldn't want to rush publication if they aren't sure of their results.

I believe she said it wasn't a replication because she had changed the formula.

She seemed to have problems with the efficiency of the original formula, which is why I believe she doesn't believe it's replication what she produced may in the end not be LK-99.

It seems like she's in the process of getting X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) done.

There has been several fake videos placed out there on the Internet.

There is a quote by jay-z I'll paraphrase

" Men lie

Women lie

But replicable science don't lie. "

The mixture of USSR tweets has patriotic Americans so ruffled that some can't see through their disbelief and rage.

>I believe she said it wasn't a replication because she had changed the formula. She seemed to have problems with the efficiency of the original formula, which is why I believe she doesn't believe it's replication what she produced may in the end not be LK-99.

Yes, it isn't replication, and the only proof that her modified substance does anything interesting is a photo of a single grain suspended inside a small tube. She hasn't written anything clarifying the process from her vague twitter thread, she hasn't posted a video showing the sample's behavior (which would be better than nothing), she hasn't shown any measurements, and when people ask for these things, she gives unconvincing excuses.

And yet every thread is full of people saying she was the first to replicate. The USSR tweets are a little eyerolling but not the main issue

_biggest eyeroll ever_

That person’s twitter feed reads like the howlings and scribblings of someone in a manic depressive cycle. I’m a little surprised _anyone_ would take them seriously.

Do we actually know who that is though? I thought it was pseudoanonymous. It’s a new twitter account at least.

It is pseudonymous, although the handle iris_IGB suggests she works at IGB, Institute of Gene Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences.

https://genebiology.ru/

I have to assume that charlatans have long since figured out how to select social media names that insinuate a relationship to a well known organization, when in fact no such relationship exists.

Her rock actually floats. Did it all in the kitchen too. She should rightly be credited as first one.

More than that, she calculated how high it will float, and how height will depend on temperature, before starting the experiment, and confirmed all her predictions.

Wow, that's hugely impressive! Where can I find more info about this? Is it all on twitter?

She has been alluding to old Soviet scientists having a theoretical foundation for the type of conductivity shown. She posted a link to this comment that explains some of the background: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36996337

Check out her twitter for some real fun rants @iris_IGB

Where did she do this? I haven't found anything in her twitter feed

They use a magnet for movement. “When the magnet is placed parallel and flat to the bottom of the beaker, the sample stands at a 90deg angle to the field.”

>> World first replication was done by Iris Alexandra using her own accelerated process and there is no way Varda Space could have beaten her.

World first public replication

As much respect for her as I have & as much I’ve enjoyed watching this pan out, a U.S. DoE affiliated lab or other nation states’ equivalent likely did something in the same timeframe.

People working in those labs are unfathomably smart & talented.

Do you have any evidence or are you just speculating?

I don't doubt that the people working in these labs are very smart and talented, perfectly capable of their own replication attempt. But would they rush to try replicating it immediately after the paper's publication?

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