“Cold fusion” moves closer to mainstream acceptance

A few years ago, David Goodstein of Caltech wrote an interesting look back at cold fusion. It's available here: <a href="http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/fusion_art.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/fusion_art.html</a><p>Where the story left off, there were a few competent researchers with well-designed experiments that were getting indications that <i>something</i> was happening that was not covered by current theory. However, cold fusion research was by then out of fashion, and no one was interested in looking deeper into those results and confirming or refuting them.<p>As Goodstein notes, "What all these experiments really need is critical examination by accomplished rivals intent on proving them wrong. That is part of the normal functioning of science. Unfortunately, in this area, science is not functioning normally. There is nobody out there listening."

Doubters and such should note several things about this press release:<p>1. It's from the American Chemical Society. While no one is infallible, they're not exactly flakes.<p>2. There are some serious names and institutions involved. Same caveat as 1.<p>3. Ask yourself if your doubts are based on hearsay of hearsay. Unless you are a nuclear chemist or physicist who has tried experimentally to produce low energy nuclear reactions without success, maybe there are reasons research has continued for so many years in the face of overwhelming public and professional ridicule.

Mostly, I'm glad this isn't the Adobe technology.

Not one of the listed papers was a successful reproduction of someone else's published work.

<i>"The presentations describe... indications that cold fusion may occur naturally in certain bacteria."</i><p>Are you serious? This boggles my mind more than anything about how bio systems work in nature in the last few years...

One of my clients is working somewhere in this field; they're having a much easier time recruiting new scientists and other personnel, and they are well funded.<p>An NDA prevents me from saying much else, but I think I can say that the field is better developed than many people realize.

"the first inexpensive means of identifying the hallmark of cold fusion reactions: the production of excess heat"<p>Shouldn't it be excess neutrons?

cold fusion won't move any closer to mainstream acceptance until people can start to show any examples of positive net energy cold fusion, either in the lab or in nature.<p>or, alternatively, show that it is possible to do coldER fusion. just, show that there's a process with the possibility of scaling down.

"some describe cold fusion as the 'Fleishmann-Pons Effect' in honor of the pioneers, Marwan noted."<p>Really? In honor of the possibly-crazy-but-much-more-likely-liars-and-con men whose experiments couldn't even come close to being replicated. The whole article acts like any current research is a vindication of Fleishmann and Pons, but honestly, if cold fusion ever does come to pass, it will be despite Fleishmann and Pons' fraudulent work. How much time and credibility was wasted trying to recreate that BS?