Please mod parent up - or rather: Remove the rest (Score 1)

I'm a professional condensed matter physicist.

This is interesting work. Topological control of electronic states is the current hot area of nanotechnology, my specialty.

This is also completely horrifying. Calling this a new state of matter is way beyond a reasonable amount of enthusiasm or hype. This is confusing, incorrect, and misleading to the public. No statement about a new form of matter appears in their (poorly written, jargon infested) research paper. This press release is clearly nothing more than an attempt on the part of the granting agency and university to artificially increase their reporting metrics and thereby increase their funding. It's an escalation in an already dangerously overheated grant funding market. The lack of accountability and seriousness here is appalling. This is... I'm sorry. I apologize on behalf of my field.

Dear moderators, this comment ("horrifying") was apparently written by someone knowledgeable in the relevant field. It is clear, points out the problems of the original press release / slashdot article and shows that quality control and basic knowledge about a field is certainly necessary before posting a story. To be blunt: The /. article should not have been posted without a huge caveat about apparent hyperbole or some simple basic research whether the claim about a new state of matter has any merrit at all.

Would you kindly mod the parent up and / or place parent comment above all the others? And while you are at it: Remove all other comments, including mine, which clearly are written by people who speculate, go off on a tangent and generally do not know what the original article is about or which problems its phrasing poses.

Sincerly
Mulmor