Foward from [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Akira Kawasaki) > [Original Message] > From: What's New <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 3/10/2006 9:49:55 PM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday March 10, 2006
WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 10 Mar 06 Washington, DC 1. BUBBLE FUSION: NEWS OF SCIENCE THAT WON'T CHANGE YOUR LIFE. The story sounded vaguely familiar. A claim was made in the month of March that deuterium fusion had been produced in a desktop experiment. However, experienced nuclear physicists, using the same experimental setup except for better detection equipment, found no evidence of fusion. By early summer, the bubble burst. "Cold fusion" in 1989? No, "bubble fusion" in 2002, http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN02/wn030102.html . But like cold fusion, the corpse of bubble fusion keeps twitching. In 2003, Rusi Taleyarkhan, who made the claim, moved from Oak Ridge to Purdue University. There he claimed to confirm fusion. Others found nothing. Last week, citing "extremely serious" concerns, Purdue announced a full review of Taleyarkhan's work. 2. SCHOOL SPIRIT: 8 OUT OF 10 ACADEMICS SAY THEY ARE SPIRITUAL. Maybe. Today's Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a UCLA survey of 46,670 faculty members at 421 institutions. Sixty-four percent called themselves religious, but there was only a 38% response rate to the survey. I would have summarized the results differently: 38% of faculty members are willing to respond to a survey about their spiritual beliefs. Anything else is a guess. 3. FAITH-BASED GOVERNMENT: FEDERAL MONEY FOR RELIGIOUS CHARITIES? President Bush this week signed an executive order establishing a religion-based office in Homeland Security. It will pray the levees hold in another hurricane. The Bush administration gave more than $2.1B to church operated social programs last year. 4. FAITH-BASED MISSILE DEFENSE: BUDGET CALLS FOR ANOTHER $10.8B. North Korea did test two short-range missiles this week, however, we haven't heard a thing about their long range missiles. Since the election we haven't seen missile defense even mentioned except in the budget. Last we heard it had failed every test. 5. THE MARS EFFECT: ORBITER WILL REACH THE RED PLANET TODAY. After a seven-month journey, it is due to fire its thrusters to achieve Mars orbit at 16:35 EST, about the time WN is sent out. If all goes well, and many Mars exploration missions have not, it will dip into the thin atmosphere to slow down, reaching its lowest orbit in November to begin making observations. 6. CASSINI MYSTERY: LIQUID WATER ON ENCELADUS, SATURN'S MOON. They haven't exactly seen water, but they have seen geysers on the geologically active little moon. There has already been much speculation about possible life on Enceladus, but it's way early for that. If NASA stays in its tail spin, we'll never know. 7. CREATIONISM FOUNDER HENRY MORRIS: DIED LAST MONTH AT AGE 87. Founder of the Creationism Institute, he wrote "The Genesis Flood," which founded the creationist movement. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnew&A=1
