The media coverage of LK-99 is yet another example of how paying attention to the news makes you uniformed.

Media outlets touted LK-99 as a room-temperature superconductor, saying that we were on the verge of another technological revolution. As a result, tons of scientists have tested LK-99 and concluded that it is not a superconductor at all. The magnetic properties are probably just iron contamination in one of the ingredients used to make LK-99. Moreover, it turns out that the original paper didn't have any evidence of superconductivity whatsoever -- at most some curious effects at low electrical currents.

It is tempting to blame the people who published the original paper on LK-99 for misrepresenting their own research. But the people that actually deserve the blame are media outlets who hype LK-99 despite a lack of evidence to justify that hype.

Meanwhile, there are other recent papers on superconductors that have far better evidence and might actually be useful research, but media outlets have paid no attention to those papers. "We don't want to tell you about useful things; we only want to hype you up over thigns that don't matter."