New Cold Fusion Experiment

[Viper Daimao]

Saw this on slashdot this morning. Seems there's some Italian magazine with an article on a Japanese cold fusion experiment performed by Yoshiaki Arata. Google translations here.

Slashdot has been known to hype a non-story, and magazines have been known to not be that accurate with science. Anyone have any idea what's going on with this?

 

[Reality Check]

There are a couple of English articles in WikiNews and this in New Energy Time. There is also a good blog entry: Cold-fusion demonstration "a success"

However announcing scientific discoveries by press conference is not the usual procedure. The usual procedure is to write a paper so that the results can be reproduced. I suggest that everyone waits to comment until this is done.

 

[Beerina]

...and also to run to the patent office ASAP, as trillions are to be made with something like this.

In any case, "scientific discoveries by press conference" is one of the potential woo warning signs in the Baloney Detection Kit.

 

[BenBurch]

This seems to be based on the über-woo "Electric Universe" theory.

I predict an epic fail.

 

[gnome]

I predict an underwhelming fail: they will evade a test that will really demonstrate whether it works or not, quietly fade into obscurity, only to be remembered on occasion on the "Coast to Coast" AM show as an example of the government suppressing free energy.

 

[Olowkow]

Not sure I understand how this is news in 2008, since he has been doing this at least since 1998:

http://www.journalarchive.jst.go.jp...ssue=7&startpage=155&lang=en&from=jnlabstract

Why doesn't someone just build a heater and heat a building with it if it works?

 

[arthwollipot]

However announcing scientific discoveries by press conference is not the usual procedure. The usual procedure is to write a paper so that the results can be reproduced. I suggest that everyone waits to comment until this is done.

In any case, "scientific discoveries by press conference" is one of the potential woo warning signs in the Baloney Detection Kit.

Odd, I'm getting a sense that there's been some kind of precedent for that in the past...