Researchers from the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego are reporting evidence for the existence of low-energy nuclear reactions, including the production of neutrons: 'Cold Fusion' Rebirth? New Evidence For Existence Of Controversial Energy Source (March 23, 2009)

Quote: ... In the new study, Mosier-Boss and colleagues inserted an electrode composed of nickel or gold wire into a solution of palladium chloride mixed with deuterium or "heavy water" in a process called co-deposition. A single atom of deuterium contains one neutron and one proton in its nucleus. Researchers passed electric current through the solution, causing a reaction within seconds. The scientists then used a special plastic, CR-39, to capture and track any high-energy particles that may have been emitted during reactions, including any neutrons emitted during the fusion of deuterium atoms. At the end of the experiment, they examined the plastic with a microscope and discovered patterns of "triple tracks," tiny-clusters of three adjacent pits that appear to split apart from a single point. The researchers say that the track marks were made by subatomic particles released when neutrons smashed into the plastic. Importantly, Mosier-Boss and colleagues believe that the neutrons originated in nuclear reactions, perhaps from the combining or fusing deuterium nuclei. "People have always asked 'Where's the neutrons?'" Mosier-Boss says. "If you have fusion going on, then you have to have neutrons. We now have evidence that there are neutrons present in these LENR reactions." They cited other evidence for nuclear reactions including X-rays, tritium (another form of hydrogen), and excess heat. Meanwhile, Mosier-Boss and colleagues are continuing to explore the phenomenon to get a better understanding of exactly how LENR works, which is key to being able to control it for practical purposes. ...

Researchers presented their findings at the American Chemical Society's National Meeting held in Salt Lake City last week. I haven't been able to find a copy of their report. I did find a critical account of their presentation: Cold Fusion Has Its Press Conference. The wikipedia entry for Cold Fusion provides an extensive overview of the topic (with more than 100 footnotes and a long bibliography). At the very bottom it links with video of the Pamela Mosier-Boss press conference from the ACS meeting. Japanese researchers have also had a breakthrough related to Cold Fusion, the production of excess heat generation and gamma ray emissions (ACS Press Release). In related news, World's Largest Laser Ready to Fire Up: "The Department of Energy's $3.5 billion laser, designed to simulate the energy of a nuclear explosion, is ready to fire up all of its 192 beams, AP reported Tuesday." So what do you think, warmed over Cold Fusion hype or something more? Should additional money be put in to further research, or should it be redirected towards Hot Fusion research (such as this superlaser)?

I had something else entirely in mind when I read the subject...

"People have always asked 'Where's the neutrons?'" Mosier-Boss says.
now people are going to ask....
where's proper experimental set up - with comparison between plastic exposed to that electrolytic cell, and plastic exposed to electrolytic cell with ordinary hydrogen. Microscope analysis by eye, that does *not* sound reliable.

Yeah, it's a called an April fools joke. The main problem with the joke is that the subject matter requires a high level of intelligence to appreciate, even the word "redux" is something I had to look up. The people who do understand the topic won't be fooled, and those who don't, don't care about the topic. If on the other hand you talked about anti-gravity, teleportation or faster than light travel, I am sure you would draw in more unsuspecting fools.

For the record, I knew it was bs from the title alone. I didn't even bother reading the post :P

Quote: Original post by GMuser
Yeah, it's a called an April fools joke. The main problem with the joke is that the subject matter requires a high level of intelligence to appreciate, even the word "redux" is something I had to look up. The people who do understand the topic won't be fooled, and those who don't, don't care about the topic. If on the other hand you talked about anti-gravity, teleportation or faster than light travel, I am sure you would draw in more unsuspecting fools.

For the record, I knew it was bs from the title alone. I didn't even bother reading the post :P

article's from march 23, evidently it isn't april fool joke. Redux does sound like a science joke (sounds like pun on redox) but it was probably accidental.

This is no April Fools' joke.

Redux: "brought back; resurgent" - The word is derived from the same word that the word "reduce" is derived from, but I did not mean to use it as a pun on "reduction-oxidation".

The U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center is real. It's the U.S. Navy's "research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support center for command, control and communication systems and ocean surveillance."

The American Chemical Society is also real. It bills itself as "The world's largest scientific society." It had a meeting in Salt Lake City last week (Chemists Meet In Utah). "MORE THAN 10,700 chemical scientists and exhibitors converged on Salt Lake City last week for the 237th ACS national meeting. Attendees presented nearly 7,300 papers in 724 oral and poster sessions covering the spectrum of chemical sciences and technology."

Pamela Mosier-Boss is real. Her study was published in Naturwissenschaften: Triple tracks in CR-39 as the result of Pd–D Co-deposition: evidence of energetic neutrons.

Here is the abstract from that study.

Quote:
Abstract Since the announcement by Fleischmann and Pons that the excess enthalpy generated in the negatively polarized Pd–D-D2O system was attributable to nuclear reactions occurring inside the Pd lattice, there have been reports of other manifestations of nuclear activities in this system. In particular, there have been reports of tritium and helium-4 production; emission of energetic particles, gamma or X-rays, and neutrons; as well as the transmutation of elements. In this communication, the results of Pd–D co-deposition experiments conducted with the cathode in close contact with CR-39, a solid-state nuclear etch detector, are reported. Among the solitary tracks due to individual energetic particles, triple tracks are observed. Microscopic examination of the bottom of the triple track pit shows that the three lobes of the track are splitting apart from a center point. The presence of three α-particle tracks outgoing from a single point is diagnostic of the 12C(n,n′)3α carbon breakup reaction and suggests that DT reactions that produce ≥9.6 MeV neutrons are occurring inside the Pd lattice. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the production of energetic (≥9.6 MeV) neutrons in the Pd–D system.

New Scientist Magazine has more: Neutron tracks revive hopes for cold fusion.

Quote:
...
Plastic fantastic

Using a similar experimental setup to Fleischmann and Pons, the researchers found the "tracks" left behind by high-energy neutrons, which, they suggest, emerge from the fusion of a deuterium and tritium atom.

The team used a low-tech particle detector: a plastic called CR-39 that is otherwise used for spectacle lenses. When CR-39 is bombarded with subatomic charged particles, a small pit forms in the material with each impact.

The researchers placed a sample of CR-39 in contact with a gold or nickel cathode in an electrochemical cell filled with a mixture of palladium chloride, lithium chloride and deuterium oxide (D2O), so-called "heavy water". When a current was passed through the cell, palladium and deuterium became deposited on the cathode.
Triple tracks

After two to three weeks, the team found a small number of "triple tracks" in the plastic – three 8-micrometre-wide pits radiating from a point (see diagram, top right). The team says such a pattern occurs when a high-energy neutron strikes a carbon atom inside the plastic and shatters it into three charged alpha particles that rip through the plastic leaving tracks. No such tracks were seen if the experiment was repeated using normal rather than heavy water.

Johan Frenje at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an expert at interpreting CR-39 tracks produced in conventional high-temperature fusion reactions, says the team's interpretation of what produced the tracks is valid.
...
More controversial is the team's suggestion for the process that produced the neutrons. High-energy neutrons are unlikely to be produced by a normal chemical reaction, says Mosier-Boss. So, it's possible, she says, they are created during the fusion of deuterium and tritium atoms tightly packed in palladium framework at the cathode. The tritium also being a product of the fusion of two deuterium atoms.
...
Others, though, are not convinced. Steven Krivit, editor of the New Energy Times, has been following the cold fusion debate for many years and also spoke at the ACS conference. "Their hypothesis as to a fusion mechanism I think is on thin ice … you get into physics fantasies rather quickly and this is an unfortunate distraction from their excellent empirical work," he told New Scientist.
...
In 2006, Allan Widom at Northeastern University in Boston and Lewis Larsen of Lattice Energy, LLC, suggested that the key to the process was oscillating surface plasmons – waves of energy rippling through electrons on the surface of the electrode.

They said that the rough surface of the palladium on the electrode focuses the energy into small pits, where it can be transferred to a single electron. The high-energy electron can then shoot into the nucleus of a nearby deuterium atom and combine with a proton to release a neutron and a neutrino (European Physical Journal C, DOI: 10.1140/epjc/s2006-02479-8).
...

that experiment somehow reminded me of particularly unscientific McGuyver episode:
[Dana Escar pours something into test tube with chlorinated water from fountain, water turns white. Dana pours something into test tube with water from lungs of drowned victim found in sea, water turns white]
Police guy: Same reaction.
Dana: Same water. He must've been drowned in fountain and dragged into sea.
Err, not so quick sherlock, you must check seawater and see that it doesn't turn white.

Or, in this case, at very least, you must compare exposed plastic with unexposed plastic (who knows what crap the plastic could have been contaminated with these days), and better, you need to do control experiment with regular water (w/o deuterium that releases neutrons when it fuses). If that's not done, well duh, my bet is that qualified researchers will be unable to reproduce it when doing experiment properly.

Never over-think a television show that wasn't meant to provoke thinking.

As for the quality of the work done by Mosier-Boss et al., these two paragraphs from the New Scientist article suggest it was more than adequate.

Quote:
Johan Frenje at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an expert at interpreting CR-39 tracks produced in conventional high-temperature fusion reactions, says the team's interpretation of what produced the tracks is valid.

Quote:
Others, though, are not convinced. Steven Krivit, editor of the New Energy Times, has been following the cold fusion debate for many years and also spoke at the ACS conference. "Their hypothesis as to a fusion mechanism I think is on thin ice … you get into physics fantasies rather quickly and this is an unfortunate distraction from their excellent empirical work," he told New Scientist.

Skeptical of their hypothesis, but laudatory of their laboratory skills.

A lot of things can go wrong with neutron-detection on plastics, though... the plastic is etched in acid, then pits (which are left where tracks leave plastic) are counted.
Since you're fond of finding links, perhaps you could find a source that indicates they did actually check unexposed plastic from same box, etched in same batch at same time?

to elaborate:
There is a plenty of very good reasons why cold fusion is very unlikely to be real, according to what we know and the model (quantum mechanics) that works, so far, perfectly in physics and chemistry.
Whereas, the probability of experimental error (like, use of plastic that has been irradiated during storage or delivery, some contaminations, and whatnot) is not very low. Historically, it is on order of several percent.
A lot of people do a lot of experiments,
"*It is among 30 papers on the topic that will be presented during a four-day symposium, "New Energy Technology," March 22-25, in conjunction with the 20th anniversary of the first description of cold fusion."
, so, a few positive results (among sea of negative results) are to be expected.
Furthermore, one can be brilliant experimental chemist, but miss something really obvious in physics (such as possibility that plastic was at some point stored near wean neutron source for prolonged period of time. It is a very sensitive detector, and weak neutron sources are not uncommon).

[Edited by - Dmytry on April 1, 2009 2:18:17 PM]

A byproduct of the D-T reaction is Helium. Why search for these pits which can simply be manufacturing defects or some other non fusion related byproduct?

I know there is an abundance of He detection methods that should be adequate.

Perhaps one or two He atoms are not enough to detect. Time to scale up the process.

Oh well, I guess that's why I'm an engineer and not a scientist.