Phys.org reports Metallic hydrogen, once theory, becomes reality. "The material - atomic metallic hydrogen - was created by Thomas D. Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences Isaac Silvera and post-doctoral fellow Ranga Dias. In addition to helping scientists answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter, the material is theorized to have a wide range of applications, including as a room-temperature superconductor. The creation of the rare material is described in a January 26 paper published in Science."
It goes on to describe it's possible uses. The NY Times reports that there's some skepticism, Hydrogen Squeezed Into a Metal, Possibly Solid, Harvard Physicists Say. "But in the small but contentious field of high-pressure physics, some scientists who perform similar experiments were harshly skeptical and wondered how the research passed peer review at a top journal like Science."
There's been other reports of its creation but without looking into it much it's not clear to me if those were all debunked.
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I read the Science article and the comments on the article. There are some questions as to whether they reached the pressure they thought, and contaminants from the diamonds themselves among other issues. Apparently this is an extremely difficult experiment to do, so the results should be taken with some skepticism and repeated, but credit them for trying.
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