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The Purdue panel said Rusi Taleyarkhan misled the scientific community by claiming his "bubble fusion" findings had been independently replicated.

Questions remain. Representative Brad Miller (D-NC) is seeking answers about Purdue's investigation. Fusion Controversy Heats Up ... Again By Robert F. ServiceScienceNOW Daily News22 March 2007 A Congressional subcommittee has stoked the flames under the cauldron of controversy that is bubble fusion. Those flames all but died out last month after an internal investigation at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, absolved nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan of any scientific misconduct surrounding his research on producing nuclear fusion in collapsing bubbles (ScienceNOW, 7 February). But yesterday, Representative Brad Miller (D-NC), who heads the Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee of the House...

Close window NaturePublished online: 13 February 2007; | doi:10.1038/445690a Disputed inquiry clears bubble-fusion engineerPurdue's investigation fails to satisfy critics.Eugenie Samuel Reich Rusi Taleyarkhan's controversial bubble-fusion findings have been upheld by his university. U.S. Department of Energy file photo/Lynn Freeny An inquiry has exonerated nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan of misconduct with respect to allegations made internally at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, officials announced last week. But the announcement may raise more questions than it answers: researchers in the field have criticized the university for failing to say whether the inquiry considered their concerns that the work may be...

On May 8, 2006, science journalist Eugenie Samuel Reich published a series of four articles in Nature which came as close as possible to accusing Purdue physicist Rusi Taleyarkhan of committing fraud without actually saying so. Taleyarkhan's research -- nuclear reactions in a novel mechanism that could have immense technological potential -- apparently seemed too good and too profound to Reich and Nature. Reich's series of four stories in Nature was replete with innuendo and groundless speculation, building a house of cards on which to base the thesis that her journalistic investigation would lead to "the end of bubble fusion."...

Close window Published online: 10 May 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060508-8 Bubble-fusion group suffer setback Team admits a mix-up with one of their neutron detectors.Eugenie Samuel Reich Rusi Taleyarkhan with his table-top fusion equipment in a lab at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he conducted research before coming to Purdue.Credit: U.S. Department of Energy file photo/Lynn Freeny A group of researchers making high-profile claims about fusion energy has admitted to accidentally using equipment different from that reported in their most recent paper. An erratum providing details of the mistake by Rusi Taleyarkhan of Purdue University and colleagues has been published in Physical...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Purdue University is investigating complaints about a scientist who claimed to have achieved "cold fusion" using sound waves to make bubbles in a test tube, the university said on Wednesday. Nuclear engineer Rusi Taleyarkhan's work has been controversial since he published a study in 2002 claiming to have achieved the Holy Grail of energy production -- nuclear fusion at room temperature. Nuclear fusion is the process that powers the sun. If scientists can duplicate the results and harness the technology, tabletop fusion has the potential to provide an almost limitless source of cheap energy. Many labs are...

A technique that some scientists claim generates thermonuclear fusion in a benchtop apparatus works even without its controversial neutron trigger. So say the researchers who, since 2002, have reported that nuclear-fusion reactions can occur in a vat of chilled solvent agitated by ultrasound (SN: 3/6/04, p. 149: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040306/fob5.asp). If this method of sparking fusion proves to be valid—a big if, critics insist—it could lead to a remarkably simple, cheap, inexhaustible power source. Fusion reactions take place in the vat because clusters of bubbles form and then violently collapse, explains nuclear engineer and team leader Rusi P....

When acetone – better known as nail polish remover – is ultrasonically resonated and irradiated by neutrons, nuclear fusion will occur. That is the claim of the two young physicists Dr. Yiban Xu and Adam Butt from the American Purdue University. "Cavitation is the phenomenon in which liquid is fractured and a void is formed to form cavities composed of gas and/or vapour", explains Xu. If the acetone is put into resonance using a piezo-crystal, gas bubbles are formed which subsequently store potential energy in the acoustic field. To ensure that the bubbles get larger than a critical value, the...