As reported earlier a few days ago, Somayazulu and others at George Washington University recently found "Evidence for Superconductivity above 260 K in Lanthanum Superhydride at Megabar Pressures". In this case the "superhydride" which has the unusual property is LaH10 which normally means there are ten valence reduction sites on the host - lanthanum - which there are not. In fact the binding arrangement is unique and only exists at extreme pressure. OTOH this kind of near-binding exists in many metal alloys and hydrogen is a metal at high pressure so an "alloy" is probably a better descriptor than "molecule"... for the superhydride. The hope is that an unpressurized host will be found, and maybe it already has been. Hidden in plain view, as it were.
What is so special about the rare earth metal lanthanum which facilitates this novel kind of molecule (or alloy)? And what is the curious connection between HTSC and LENR? One hint can be found in the alloy known as lanthanum pentanickel LaNi5, which is a metal alloy that will rapidly absorb massive amounts of hydrogen gas like palladium does, only to a higher loading. This alloy has been used for hydrogen storage, as one might expect. A search on google turns up several hundred hits reporting LENR effects in lanthanum pentanickel so all of this fits into an emerging picture. Are there pathways for a needed breakthrough here (to take LENR forward)? Maybe, the circumstantial evidence makes one wonder if LaNi5 is doing the same thing a Holmlid's catalyst which is to form a higher density allotrope but doing it in a more efficient way. If so then the next step would be laser irradiation at a wavelength which is suspected to cause the proton to unravel and self-annihilate (the "backdoor") into muons, I have found no evidence that this has been tried yet or even anticipated, but it should be tried. Jones As for "philosopher's stone" in the subject heading, an old Van Morrison tune came on as I was typing this and it seemed vaguely apropos...
