WHAT'S NEW Friday, April 16, 2004

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 16 Apr 04   Washington, DC
                         
1. HAFNIUM-178: JUST WHEN YOU THINK LIFE CAN'T GET ANY SILLIER. 
The cover of Popular Mechanics for May proclaims the dawn of the
age of atomic airplanes powered by miniature nuclear reactors. 
These are not old-fashioned fission reactors.  These are the new
"quantum nucleonic reactors," a.k.a. hafnium-178 isomer reactors.
The problem with fission reactors was that they required too much
shielding.  The problem with the hafnium-178 reactor is that it
doesn't exist.  Carl Collins at U. of Texas, Dallas, claimed to
be able to trigger decay of the hafnium-178 nuclear isomer with
x-rays.  That would be a miracle, but several other groups found
it just doesn't happen.  That detail was left out of the Popular
Mechanics story, which contains nothing beyond the New Scientist
story a year ago  http://www.aps.org/WN/WN03/wn081503.cfm .  The
hafnium-178 isomer avalanche now seems destined to join hydrinos,
zero-point energy, gravity shields, cold fusion and all the other
free-energy fantasies that only work for believers.  In the
paranormal world this is known as "the investigator effect."

2. EXPLORATION: PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON MOON, MARS AND BEYOND.
We haven't heard much about President Bush's space-exploration
initiative lately, but his Moon-Mars Commission is holding public
meetings in San Francisco.  Yesterday it was spring break, but
few students, or anyone else, showed up.  The panel talked to Ray
Bradbury by satellite.  He told them about Columbus (yawn).   A
television producer who followed Bradbury explained that, "You
get them pumped up through MTV, video games and The Simpsons." 
They will convene another public meeting in New York before
making recommendations to NASA and to the President in June.

3. PEER REVIEW: "IMPROVED" OMB GUIDELINES ARE MERELY OUTRAGEOUS. 
Faced with challenges from science on everything from missile
defense to the environment, the White House Office of Management
and Budget wants to control the flow of scientific information
within the federal system.  OMB proposed "peer review" guidelines
to prevent release of "junk science."  How can scientists object
to peer review?  Or to blocking junk science?  In the name of
conflict of interest, however, academic experts who received
federal grant money were excluded from peer-review panels, with
no similar restrictions on industry experts.  Industry loved it;
scientists declared war.  So OMB modified the guidelines to
eliminate a few of the bad parts.  Everyone agreed it was "much
improved."  It's the oldest ploy in Washington. 

4. GENERAL RELATIVITY: GRAVITY PROBE B LAUNCH IS MONDAY 10:01 AM.
However, the satellite launch window is one second, and it could
be delayed to Tuesday four minutes earlier.  But everything is
relative, it took 45 years to get this far.


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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