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Me/CFS: The blind spot in proactive medicine (Open Letter)

https://github.com/debugmeplease/debug-ME
1•debugmeplease•7s ago•1 comments

Ask HN: What are the word games do you play everyday?

1•gogo61•2m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Paper Arena – A social trading feed where only AI agents can post

https://paperinvest.io/arena
1•andrenorman•4m ago•0 comments

TOSTracker – The AI Training Asymmetry

https://tostracker.app/analysis/ai-training
1•tldrthelaw•8m ago•0 comments

The Devil Inside GitHub

https://blog.melashri.net/micro/github-devil/
2•elashri•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Distill – Migrate LLM agents from expensive to cheap models

https://github.com/ricardomoratomateos/distill
1•ricardomorato•8m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Sigma Runtime – Maintaining 100% Fact Integrity over 120 LLM Cycles

https://github.com/sigmastratum/documentation/tree/main/sigma-runtime/SR-053
1•teugent•9m ago•0 comments

Make a local open-source AI chatbot with access to Fedora documentation

https://fedoramagazine.org/how-to-make-a-local-open-source-ai-chatbot-who-has-access-to-fedora-do...
1•jadedtuna•10m ago•0 comments

Introduce the Vouch/Denouncement Contribution Model by Mitchellh

https://github.com/ghostty-org/ghostty/pull/10559
1•samtrack2019•11m ago•0 comments

Software Factories and the Agentic Moment

https://factory.strongdm.ai/
1•mellosouls•11m ago•1 comments

The Neuroscience Behind Nutrition for Developers and Founders

https://comuniq.xyz/post?t=797
1•01-_-•11m ago•0 comments

Bang bang he murdered math {the musical } (2024)

https://taylor.town/bang-bang
1•surprisetalk•11m ago•0 comments

A Night Without the Nerds – Claude Opus 4.6, Field-Tested

https://konfuzio.com/en/a-night-without-the-nerds-claude-opus-4-6-in-the-field-test/
1•konfuzio•13m ago•0 comments

Could ionospheric disturbances influence earthquakes?

https://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/research-news/2026-02-06-0
2•geox•15m ago•1 comments

SpaceX's next astronaut launch for NASA is officially on for Feb. 11 as FAA clea

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/spacexs-next-astronaut-launch-for-nas...
1•bookmtn•16m ago•0 comments

Show HN: One-click AI employee with its own cloud desktop

https://cloudbot-ai.com
2•fainir•18m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Poddley – Search podcasts by who's speaking

https://poddley.com
1•onesandofgrain•19m ago•0 comments

Same Surface, Different Weight

https://www.robpanico.com/articles/display/?entry_short=same-surface-different-weight
1•retrocog•22m ago•0 comments

The Rise of Spec Driven Development

https://www.dbreunig.com/2026/02/06/the-rise-of-spec-driven-development.html
2•Brajeshwar•26m ago•0 comments

The first good Raspberry Pi Laptop

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/the-first-good-raspberry-pi-laptop/
3•Brajeshwar•26m ago•0 comments

Seas to Rise Around the World – But Not in Greenland

https://e360.yale.edu/digest/greenland-sea-levels-fall
2•Brajeshwar•26m ago•0 comments

Will Future Generations Think We're Gross?

https://chillphysicsenjoyer.substack.com/p/will-future-generations-think-were
1•crescit_eundo•29m ago•1 comments

State Department will delete Xitter posts from before Trump returned to office

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/07/nx-s1-5704785/state-department-trump-posts-x
2•righthand•32m ago•1 comments

Show HN: Verifiable server roundtrip demo for a decision interruption system

https://github.com/veeduzyl-hue/decision-assistant-roundtrip-demo
1•veeduzyl•33m ago•0 comments

Impl Rust – Avro IDL Tool in Rust via Antlr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmKvw73V394
1•todsacerdoti•33m ago•0 comments

Stories from 25 Years of Software Development

https://susam.net/twenty-five-years-of-computing.html
3•vinhnx•34m ago•0 comments

minikeyvalue

https://github.com/commaai/minikeyvalue/tree/prod
3•tosh•39m ago•0 comments

Neomacs: GPU-accelerated Emacs with inline video, WebKit, and terminal via wgpu

https://github.com/eval-exec/neomacs
1•evalexec•44m ago•0 comments

Show HN: Moli P2P – An ephemeral, serverless image gallery (Rust and WebRTC)

https://moli-green.is/
2•ShinyaKoyano•48m ago•1 comments

How I grow my X presence?

https://www.reddit.com/r/GrowthHacking/s/UEc8pAl61b
2•m00dy•49m ago•0 comments
Open in hackernews

A Common Semiconductor Just Became a Superconductor

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/10/251030075105.htm
81•tsenturk•3mo ago

Comments

tsenturk•3mo ago
Researchers have for the first time turned germanium—a widely used semiconductor—into a superconducting material by embedding gallium atoms in its crystal structure. This breakthrough could usher in a new era of quantum devices and ultra-efficient electronics.
algesten•2mo ago
> ...allows it to carry current with zero resistance at 3.5 Kelvin (about -453 degrees Fahrenheit)

Seems to me this is a problem.

fnands•2mo ago
It's an interesting result, but yeah, not a room temperature superconductor.
zahlman•2mo ago
For that matter, we've had superconductors for decades that work at much higher temperatures than this one.
rwmj•2mo ago
It seems the breakthrough is that you could use familiar semiconductor manufacturing processes. However the temperature is still going to be a major issue. I don't want a computer that requires liquid helium cooling.
zahlman•2mo ago
> you could use familiar semiconductor manufacturing processes.

Unclear to me why that's helpful. Materials that superconduct at a higher temperature than this one aren't hard to come by, or obscure:

> In 1913, lead was found to superconduct at 7 K,

lazide•2mo ago
Probably because they don’t behave well for normal lithography techniques? The high temp superconductors I know of are weird meta materials, and good luck getting them to exist in chip form at all.
pwg•2mo ago
> I don't want a computer that requires liquid helium cooling.

True, but I /can/ see someone, such as Sandia National Labs, very much willing to install a liquid helium cooled computer if it provides a significant performance increase above their existing supercomputer installations.

throwaway173738•2mo ago
Isn’t that very close to the practical limit for cooling in a lab?
analog31•2mo ago
Not that hard. A dilution fridge, used for instance for cooling quantum computers, can go much lower:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilution_refrigerator

wizardforhire•2mo ago
Thanks!

Was gonna be lazy and say… temp or is doesn't matter.

wasabi991011•2mo ago
Quantum devices are already cooled to that temperature (at least for some technologies), so it's not a problem in that use case.
jeffwass•2mo ago
Title is a bit misleading - it's not pure germanium that superconducts here, it's germanium doped w/ Gallium atoms.

Superconducting germanium alloys have been known for decades, I used a Molybdenum/Germanium superconducting alloy in my PhD research 20 years ago, with much higher Tc.

The interesting aspect of this current experiment is the precise alignment of the Ga atoms into specific points of the Ge lattice, so preserving the crystalline structure order which leads to some interesting effects.

zahlman•2mo ago
> which leads to some interesting effects.

Such as?

cbondurant•2mo ago
Leaves me wondering if this will allow for superconducting cryogenic transistors? If my hobby level understanding of how silicon doping works, this new superconducting germanium would be a p-type? I could imagine something like ion implantation could be able to establish n-type regions within the germanium while allowing bulk regions of the lattice to maintain superconducting properties.

Though admittedly, I'm not actually aware what parts of a semiconductor circuit are the biggest power dissipation sources, so I guess its entirely possible that most of the power is dissipated across the p-n junctions themselves.

sevensor•2mo ago
Yes, this would be P type. Boron is usually the P type dopant of choice. I’m not sure what role they have in mind for this, but probably to replace polysilicon and metals as conductors. What you have to watch out for is that this will make diodes wherever it bumps up against n-type material. This is a problem for metals as well, because you can get accidental schottky junctions, and we usually solve it with degenerate doping under the contract. I’m not sure what a junction with this material would do though.
pfdietz•2mo ago
> Boron is usually the P type dopant of choice.

I want to note that in what has become the largest (by mass) application of semiconductors, silicon PV cells, boron has been replaced by gallium as the P type dopant of choice. Boron suffers from an annoying form of light-induced efficiency degradation that gallium avoids.

sevensor•2mo ago
Fair enough, my ion implant experience was DRAM / flash. I never worked on PV.
metalman•2mo ago
whole article is suspect in that it mentions cryogenic consumer products or maybe this is a slip and next gen refrigerator advertising will be run by a self hosting AI
wasabi991011•2mo ago
I don't know if they updated the article, but I don't see any reference to cryogenic consumer products.

They mention cryogenic electronics, which are used for high-sensitivity electronics in research labs and in medical tests (eg SQUIDs for magnetoencephalography).

zahlman•2mo ago
> For decades, researchers have tried to create semiconductor materials that can also act as superconductors -- materials capable of carrying electric current without resistance. Semiconductors, which form the foundation of modern computer chips and solar cells, could operate far faster and more efficiently if they also possessed superconducting abilities.

Really? First I've heard of it. And it also doesn't make any sense, since defintionally a material can't be superconducting and semiconducting at the same time, any more than it could be conducting and insulating at the same time. Are they imagining some new kind of thermal-switching circuitry?

This reads to me like the researchers came up with an irrelevant novelty (which is, to be fair, a valid and important part of scientific progress; it still expands our understanding of the universe) and Science Daily asked an LLM to rationalize it as useful.

mschuster91•2mo ago
> And it also doesn't make any sense, since defintionally a material can't be superconducting and semiconducting at the same time

I'd say it gets interesting if one can get at least part of a die made out of superconductors. Getting power in into the die is a huge damn challenge, we're talking about hundreds of amps for modern CPUs and GPUs - if even a part of that could be shrunk that would be a huge gain.

HelloNurse•2mo ago
Not if you spend that energy, or more, to cool the device hundreds of degrees below room temperature using liquid helium.
dotnet00•2mo ago
The image on the article talks about making Josephson junctions with it, and the abstract talks about epitaxial superconductor-semiconductor devices.

It feels like the researchers were mainly interested in applicability to Josephson junctions, and the article mixed them up with semiconductor junctions.

yxhuvud•2mo ago
.. at a temperature of 3.5K. So perhaps not super practical.
s1mon•2mo ago
It's not practical for your desktop computer, but a tank of nitrogen and some refrigeration hardware which fits in a single rack and you can run at 3.5K in a data center.
AnimalMuppet•2mo ago
Nitrogen freezes at 63K. That makes it a bad coolant for a continuously-running process at 3.5K.
jandrewrogers•2mo ago
3.5K is well below the point where nitrogen is liquid. The only option would be helium.
marcosdumay•2mo ago
Just to point, but it would require actively cooled helium. You can't just drop it in liquid helium and expect boiling to cool your device.
Pet_Ant•2mo ago
Can you make a closed loop helium cooler? Also, that level of coldness seems like it would have negative interactions with other components.
quickthrowman•2mo ago
> Can you make a closed loop helium cooler?

An MRI machine is a giant magnet with a closed loop helium cooler to keep the superconducting coils cold. A chiller is used to reject the heat outside.