From the article:
"The researchers then cooled europium down to about 1.8 kelvins (â"271.35Â Celsius), a frigid temperature near absolute zero.
At pressures around 80 gigapascals, or about 800,000 times the pressure exerted by the atmosphere at sea level, europium lost its magnetism. Electrons could flow freely through the metal without resistance."
The closest thing the average person could conceive (or at least myself) in
a) Pressure and
b) freeze capability / something involving lasers?
would be compactors and liquid nitrogen. I'm still having problems seeing this be generally applied for use.
This isn't the first time yet another rare earth element/metal has had to be cooled down (and/or pressurized) to unnatural levels to unlock superconductivity. I thought the goals of such experiments was to figure out how to conventionally utilize superconductivity on a mass scale without the need for highly specific environmental conditions.
Since this article also mentions most rare earth metals share this superconductive capability (at near-zero kelvin temperatures and/or massive unnatural Earth pressures), this isn't something new, still.