Re: NEW ENERGY TIMES (tm) MARCH 10, 2006 -- Issue #15

[Jones Beene]

Steve,   Great job. I took the liberty of sending the following post to the hydrino group:     Subj: Sonofusion Fraud Possibility ar Purdue - NOT     An excellent background article on this current situation, which is relevant to Mills/BLP and the sad state of Science Journalism in "Nature" compounded by the 'me-too' antics of the NYT appears at: http://newenergytimes.com/news/NET15.htm#bubbletrouble Let's hope that Mills, no matter how you feel about the validity of his theoretical work, does not fall prey to this same kind of irresponsible journalism... where grad students with sloppy computer simulations override real experimental data - at least in the minds of some journalists. There is a thin line here - we all want to be able to be openly critical of percieved errors - at least online and in a forum-setting, but at the same time find it repugnant to have misinformed (or intentionally misled) journalists take charge of the situation in front of a broader national audience - which will definitely influence funding levels. Mills himself has of course, in the past - appeared to threaten the voicing of free speech on this forum. Regrettable... and now we see the other extreme of a corresponding injustice - and possible behind-the-scenes manipulation of the media-end of the info-balancing-beam. Free-speech is ever so fine a balance. Go to article 10: 10. On Science, Journalism, and Nature by Steven B. Krivit "On the morning of March 8, 2006, Nature published an investigation by freelance writer Eugenie Samuel Reich of the unique fusion research pioneered by Rusi Taleyarkhan, professor of nuclear engineering at Purdue University. Within 24 hours, the story was picked up by 50 news outlets around the world." The final chapter has yet to be written on this subject, but at this stage it is clear that the possibility of a self-serving motivation (both financial and academic) behind the Putterman/Naranjo involvements in both the BBC, Nature and NYT reports - never mentioned until the media was confonted with the evidence - and this should never have been permitted without full and open disclosure. There is ample evidence of incredibly shoddy jounalism by all three media giants - which could potentially damage, if not ruin, the career of a fine researcher. If nothing else, one can almost sense the possibility of some recourse to the legal system by the beleaguer and hounded Taleyarkhan ... IF ... or course, his results do indeed hold up under closer scrutiny. And in all fairness, it should be mentioned that sonofusion experts like Ross Tessien are not certain that Taleyarkhan's results are valid - but if nothing else, all the hoopla should serve to motivate others to try to replicate the work. Regards, Jones Beene