In a week that has contained the revelation that aliens are real and have visited our planet, the most exciting news may actually that 3 researchers in Seoul, South Korea claimed to have synthesized a new material that is a superconductor at room temperature and ambient atmospheric pressure.

I’ll leave it to others to discuss the implications of this, but if true it could turn out to be the greatest physics discovery of my lifetime.

It could also, of course, turn out to be false, and plenty of doubts are already being cast about the results and the researchers. But at this moment there are people all around the globe trying to replicate the findings, and we may start hearing about the results in a matter of hours. Some of them are even live-tweeting the effort. There’s an exciting energy of discovery and optimism stemming from this finding.

Just another reminder that every day is science fiction.