WHAT`s NEW

 WHAT'S NEW  Robert L.Park
Friday, April 2, 2004;  Washington, DC
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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 otherventures doing?
Let's take a look at one.
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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
("/WN/WN03/wn102403.cfm#4"). 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.
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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.
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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.
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Bob Park can be reached via email at whatsnew@bobpark.org
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THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
Opinions are the author's and are not necessarily shared by the
University, but they should be.