Yes, "replication" in this experiments usualy means foloeing the oficial recipe and many small variants.

Publishing an exact reproduction is difficult, but a new record a few degrees hotter is easy. (And even another variant with a lower temperature and more tolerance for current or magnetic field can be published with the right text.)

> but a new record a few degrees hotter is easy

Assuming one exists. Assuming it is real.

Yep. Easier to publish, assuming it exist and you can find it.

I can't see why they'd skip replication given the uncertain status of the original process. They'd try to replicate as closely as possible, confirm they have a superconducting material, then they'd branch out from their established process. Starting from a variation means they don't know whether it doesn't work because of the variation or because it doesn't work at all.

I hear some very clever labs can do more than one thing at a time.

That’s not unreasonable, but the high-risk, high-reward approach would be to let researchers elsewhere do basic verification, while you try to leap a step ahead of them by going directly to derivative variations.

Abandon the work if nobody can replicate LK-99 within a few weeks and you haven’t really lost out badly.