Nuclear fusion on the desktop ... really! Mini-reactor yields neutrons, could power spacecraft

MSN ^ | April 27, 2005 | staff

[Arkie2]

Scientists say they have achieved small-scale nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment, using tried and true techniques that are expected to generate far less controversy than past such claims.

This latest experiment relied on a tiny crystal to generate a strong electric field. While the energy created was too small to harness cheap fusion power, the technique could have potential uses in medicine, spacecraft propulsion, the oil drilling industry and homeland security, said Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Putterman and his colleagues at UCLA, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski, report their results in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.

Past derision Previous claims of tabletop fusion have been met with skepticism and even derision by physicists.

In one of the most notable cases, Dr. B. Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and Martin Fleischmann of Southampton University in England shocked the world in 1989 when they announced that they had achieved so-called cold fusion at room temperature. Their work was discredited after repeated attempts to reproduce it failed.

Another technique, known as sonoluminescence, generates heat through the collapse of tiny bubbles in a liquid. Some scientists claim that nuclear fusion occurs during the reaction, but those claims have sparked sharp debate.

[Arkie2]

My bad. Already posted. Please take this down

[Kenny500c]

"Another technique, known as sonoluminescence, generates heat through the collapse of tiny bubbles in a liquid"

Is that why my Natty Light gets warm?