Number 166 (Story #4), February 25, 1994 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein OBSERVATIONS OF SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AT 250 K are difficult to confirm for a number of reasons. For one thing, the samples used by Michel Lagues in Paris were painstakingly made atomic layer by layer, the better to control the structure, and are therefore quite small, only 5 x 10**-8 cu.cm. This complicates the task of making electrical contact, which limits the sensitivity of resistance measurements. Other problems are stability and reproducibility; similar samples don't act alike and don't retain fixed properties for more than a few days. (Physics Today, Feb. 1994.)