[Servant of the 9]

Gotta hope it is true. A form of 'cold fusion' would be the most revolutionary technologica advance since the invention of the horse.

Gotta doubt it. Hard to believe something this simple wouldn't have shown up as a side effect in many other experiments.

So9

[hosepipe]

I'm glad, My hard headed disbelief and skepticism..
Won't stand up to even a minuscule amount proof..
prompting me to say, "Yeah!, IN MY DREAMS"...

[Darksheare]

Sonoluminescence.

[bolobaby]

Any possibility that could reduce dependence on foreign oil should be fully explored!

[Tennessee_Bob]

Just more of the same here in Oak Ridge. Taleyarkhan will claim it, others will disprove it. Still and all, it's job security out at ORNL.

[rface]

if they can get a big ol' SUV to run on it, then I am all for it

[BikePacker]

It looks like they did it, folks!

This is extremely exciting - and should be on every front page of the world.

[Physicist]

It's not obviously wrong on the face of it, but then, neither was the Pons/Fleischmann fusion cell. (Contrary to the revisionist history espoused by cold fusion cultists, many physicists accepted the Utah results as valid, until people tried to reproduce them.) What hurts the acceptance of this paper is that there have already been claims of fusion from sonoluminescence that have been withdrawn. That inevitably raises the credibility bar in the minds of most people.

The attractive idea behind sonoluminescence as a path to fusion is that a spherically convergent wavefront can produce some terribly extreme conditions. On paper, this can work, which is what keeps people looking and hoping.

[punster]

Are the experimenters getting any increased radiation levels when they perform the experiment?

The expected reacction is: Two deuterium atoms fuse to per form an atom of helium-3 plus a neutron and gamma radiation.

An experment with one watt of energy output would put out a dangerous level of radiation.

[genefromjersey]

I'd like to see an immediate practical application: some sort of device that would capture the blast waves generated by the stereos in passing cars at midnight,and return them to their source,in the form of an energy beam ( survival of vehicle occupants optional).

[William Tell]

From the article: The uproar was so heated that officials at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, where the experiments were conducted, wrote to Science magazine urging its editors to delay, if not kill, the controversial paper.

Also from the article: I don't think it is true," says Dan Shapira, another nuclear engineer at Oak Ridge who had been unable to replicate Prof. Taleyarkhan's research.

Lack of reproducibility is the hallmark of bad science. It doesn't mean that there is nothing interesting going on. It just means that the people publishing are unable or unwilling to publish sufficient information and guidance for others to replicate their experiments.

If they are unwilling to do so, then there is little need for peer-review. They might as well take out an ad in the National Enquirer.

If they are unable to provide information allowing for replication of their experiment, then it does not really constitute an "experiment".

There is definitely something "interesting" going on with sonoluminescence. It would not be unheard of for ambitious scientists to rush any results they get into print in order to claim the early credit. With the amount of science which goes on nowadays, one must hurry to be first at anything.

[kennedy]