theregister.com
Science is set to swap out its 2021 “editorial expression of concern” over Microsoft’s 2020 paper on topological superconductivity for a milder correction, noting the authors didn’t fully disclose how they tuned their devices or catalogued all their data. Charles Marcus, a co-author and former Microsoft Quantum Lab director, is relieved—and a bit miffed at losing four years of his life—after multiple inquiries (including one by Copenhagen’s research-ethics committee) cleared him of wrongdoing.
But Sergey Frolov, the physicist who first flagged the paper’s shaky tunneling-spectroscopy results, isn’t satisfied: he thinks the work merits retraction, not just a footnote. The spat echoes wider doubts about Microsoft’s Majorana-based quantum computing claims and underlines how hard it is to police high-stakes research when the technology itself remains largely unverified.
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