WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 02, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 2 Apr 04   Washington, DC

1. COLD FUSION: TRUE BELIEVERS SEE DOE REVIEW AS "VINDICATION." 
There hasn't been much to celebrate in the 15 years since the
University of Utah held a press conference in Salt Lake City to
announce the discovery of "cold fusion."  Although a brave little
band of true believers continued to trumpet cold fusion, the band
leader was publishing "Infinite Energy Magazine."  That made it
pretty hard to take this stuff seriously.  Although there was no
press release or announcement, DOE has apparently agreed to take
a second look.  That's not really too surprising; not since the
Reagan administration has unbridled technological optimism so
dominated Washington decision making: missile defense, hydrogen
cars, hafnium bombs, manned missions to Mars.  How are these
other ventures doing?  Let's take a look at one. 

2. THE HAFNIUM BOMB: THE DARPA MOTTO IS "HIGH RISK, HIGH PAYOFF."
With DARPA support, a group led by Carl Collins at the U. of
Texas at Dallas claimed to be able to trigger energy release from
a hafnium-178 isomer using a dental X-ray machine.  As What's New
reported last October, a group using the Advanced Photon Source
at Argonne found no sign of the hafnium-178 isomer-triggering
effect http://www.aps.org/WN/WN03/wn102403.cfm .  We thought that
would be the end of it, but Sunday there was a long cover story
on the hafnium-178 bomb in the Washington Post Magazine.  The
people at DARPA seem to have the "high risk" thing down pretty
well, but "high payoff" still seems to be a problem.   

3. ANTI-TERRORISM: PSYCHIC TIP PROMPTS BOMB SEARCH OF AIRLINER.
Last Friday, American Airlines Flight 1304 from Fort Myers, FL to
Dallas was scrubbed.  The plane was searched with bomb-sniffing
dogs.  A self-described psychic had called to say a bomb might be
on the plane.  Should the psychic be charged with making a false
police report?  The psychic no doubt acted out of a sense of
concern for the lives of innocent passengers.  Being crazy is
only crazy.  The Transportation Security Administration official
who acted on the fantasy of a psychic was terminally stupid. 

4. MANAGING THE NEWS: HOW LIBYA'S NUCLEAR EFFORT WAS EXAGGERATED.
By any measure, Libya's unilateral decision to drop its nuclear
weapons program was very good news, but spin doctors are never
satisfied.  Two weeks ago 45 journalists were flown by chartered
jet to DOE's Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge to listen to DOE Secretary
Abraham, who stood beside a pile of centrifuge components from
Libya. Guards with weapons at the ready stood by. The implication
was that Libya was close to making a bomb.  A week later, the New
York Times disclosed that the casings lacked the finely tooled
rotors to make them useful.  A DOE spokesperson shrugged, "Libya
has tons of steel to make rotors."  Of course, and sculpting is
just a matter of removing the unnecessary part of the stone.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.  
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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