Friday, April 16, 2004
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 (WN 15 Aug 03). 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.
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