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SCIENCE AND ENERGY NEWS
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Editorial: Finding falsification—and fighting it
By Tom Laurin
Photonics Spectra
February 2010
Allegations of fraud can take a long time to show up and can take even longer to investigate and prove. But the process is worth it: Innovation will falter without integrity.
On page 57 of this issue, editor Hank Hogan takes an in-depth look at research misconduct, from the difficulties associated with identifying it, to how scientists in our industry can educate themselves (and others) on how to fight it. The article also looks at policies and procedures currently in place that can help deter and uncover future falsification, fabrication and plagiarism in scientific research.
Remember the bubble fusion scandal? That particular case certainly took a long time to develop. In autumn 2008, Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., stripped nuclear engineering professor Rusi P. Taleyarkhan of his named professorship after a university appeals committee upheld findings that he had falsified research records not once but twice in reporting his work on sonofusion.
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Letters: Muons, deuterium, and cold fusion
Physics Today
February 2010
It would be in the national interest for all those involved in the cold-fusion controversy to read a 1957 paper by Luis Alvarez and his coworkers. During the 1950s Alvarez, of the University of California, Berkeley, invented a new kind of particle detector. Called a hydrogen bubble chamber, it was the subject of one of the 40 patents he held. It was vastly superior to other detectors then available, and it permitted experiments that would not otherwise have been possible.
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Hotheads debunk cold fusion theory too soon
The National (United Arab Emirates)
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Without a doubt, the biggest setback to fusion research in the past quarter of a century was the scandal over “cold fusion”.
Dr Stanley Pons, a professor of chemistry at the University of Utah, and his colleague Dr Martin Fleischmann, of the University of Southampton in England, touched off a furore by claiming to have achieved nuclear fusion in a jar of water at room temperature.
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World View: Calling Science to Account
By
Colin Macilwain
Nature
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Scientists and the media are trapped in a cosy relationship that benefits neither. They should challenge each other more, says Colin Macilwain.
As you read this I will be in San Diego for the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). For policy wonks like me, it's an unmissable event. It is also a prime example of what is wrong with science's relationship with the mass media.
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UK plans first nuclear fusion power plant
By
Jonathan Leake
The Times (U.K.)
Sunday, February 21, 2010
British scientists have drawn up plans to build the world’s first nuclear fusion power station. They say it could be pouring electricity into the National Grid within 20 years.
Nuclear fusion, the power that lies at the heart of the sun, offers the prospect of clean, safe, carbon-free power with a minimum of radioactive waste. But despite decades of research the technical problems have seemed insurmountable.
This weekend, however, Research Councils UK (RCUK), which oversees the British government’s spending on science and technology, has said it believes that many of those obstacles are close to being overcome.
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ACS: Cold Fusion Calorimeter Confusion
By Katharine Sanderson
Nature
Monday, March 22, 2010
Since its triumphal return to the ACS three years ago, cold fusion seems to have gathered momentum.
Back in 2007, the session took place on the last day of the meeting when most people had already gone home, and was tucked away in a room that was a ten-minute walk from the main sessions, and only a handful of people attended - all who knew one another already.
How times change. This year the "low energy nuclear reactions" (LENR) sessions took place over the first two days of the conference, in rooms that are not at all hard to find, and also with many more attendees. The ACS press office even publicised the event and gave a press conference to the speakers.
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Fusion's Ups & Downs
By Alan Boyle
MSNBC's Cosmic Log
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
This week, scientists gathered at the American Chemical Society's spring meeting in San Francisco to turn the spotlight on a highly unorthodox path: the effect known as cold fusion.
Back in 1989, cold fusion was heralded as a simple, inexpensive way to get a power-generating fusion reaction on a desktop. But when the experimental results couldn't be reproduced, the researchers were driven into obscurity.
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Scientific Disciplines Mix At Chemistry Meeting
By Ira Flatow
National Public Radio's Science Friday
Friday, March 26, 2010
Transcript and audio of Michael McKubre interview on Science Friday.
FLATOW: Cold fusion, or as it's being called now, low-energy nuclear reactions, has been under study for decades very quietly. We've been getting all kinds of reports over the years, and this week, the American Chemical Society brought it out of the cold and into the open.
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New suspects charged in Mallove mystery slaying
By Greg Smith
Norwich Bulletin
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Two years after two murder suspects were freed because of a lack of evidence, police on Thursday made two new arrests in connection with the unsolved 2004 death of New Hampshire scientist and author Eugene Mallove, who was found beaten in the driveway of his Norwich rental property.
Chad M. Schaffer, 32, of 34-36 S. 2nd St., No. 2, in Taftville, was charged with murder, felony murder and first-degree robbery.
Candace L. Foster, 30, with a last known address of 35 Chestnut St., Apt. 402, in Norwich, was charged with accessory to murder, first-degree robbery and felony murder.
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Norwich detectives arrest two in Mallove murder
By Greg Smith
Norwich Bulletin
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Police arrested a Norwich couple Thursday on murder and robbery charges in connection with the unsolved 2004 death of New Hampshire scientist and author Eugene Mallove, who was found beaten and stabbed in the driveway of his Norwich rental property.
Candace L. Foster, 30, with last known address 35 Chestnut St., Apt. 402, in Norwich was charged with accessory to murder, first-degree robbery and felony murder. Chad M. Schaffer, 32, of 34-36 S. Second St., No. 2, in Taftville was charged with murder, felony murder and first-degree robbery.
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Europe Finds Clean Energy in Trash, but U.S. Lags
By Elisabeth Rosenthal
The New York Times
Monday, April 12, 2010
HORSHOLM, Denmark - The lawyers and engineers who dwell in an elegant enclave here are at peace with the hulking neighbor just over the back fence: a vast energy plant that burns thousands of tons of household garbage and industrial waste, round the clock.
Far cleaner than conventional incinerators, this new type of plant converts local trash into heat and electricity. Dozens of filters catch pollutants, from mercury to dioxin, that would have emerged from its smokestack only a decade ago.
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Obama and the Oil Spill
By Thomas Friedman
The New York Times
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
President Obama's handling of the gulf oil spill has been disappointing.
I say that not because I endorse the dishonest conservative critique that the gulf oil spill is somehow Obama's Katrina and that he is displaying the same kind of incompetence that George W. Bush did after that hurricane. To the contrary, Obama's team has done a good job coordinating the cleanup so far. The president has been on top of it from the start.
No, the gulf oil spill is not Obama's Katrina. It's his 9/11 - and it is disappointing to see him making the same mistake George W. Bush made with his 9/11. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of those rare seismic events that create the possibility to energize the country to do something really important and lasting that is too hard to do in normal times.
Sadly, President Obama seems intent on squandering his environmental 9/11 with a Bush-level failure of imagination. So far, the Obama policy is: "Think small and carry a big stick." He is rightly hammering the oil company executives. But he is offering no big strategy to end our oil addiction.
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Co-defendant slated to testify at Mallove murder hearing
By Karen Florin
The Day (Connecticut)
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Candace L. Foster, one of two people charged with the May 2004 murder of physicist Eugene Mallove, is expected to testify in New London Superior Court this afternoon as a probable cause hearing continues for her former boyfriend, Chad Schaffer.
Norwich police charged Foster and Schaffer with the murder on April 1 after reopening the investigation when a New London judge dismissed murder charges against two men initially charged with fatally beating Mallove in the driveway of his mother's home at 119 Salem Turnpike in Norwich.
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Accused: Dying Mallove begged for help in driveway
By Karen Florin
The Day (Connecticut)
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Candace L. Foster, charged with her former boyfriend in the 2004 murder of physicist Eugene Mallove, testified today that her former boyfriend brought her to the crime scene and forced her to strike the critically injured Mallove as he lay on the ground bleeding.
Foster said she went to 119 Salem Turnpike in Norwich with Chad Schaffer and a man named Mozelle Brown after Schaffer returned to their Chestnut Street apartment with blood on his shirt and told her he needed her to go somewhere. Brown drove Schaffer and Foster to the house, where they had once lived with Schaffer's parents. Mallove, who had traveled from New Hampshire to clean out the property for his mother, was lying on the driveway, face down, Foster said, and "there was blood."
"Chad and Mozelle turned him over on his back," Foster testified. "Blood spurted from his mouth. He said, 'Help me.' ''
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Testimony: Mallove begged assailants for help
By Karen Florin
The Day (Connecticut)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
On May 14, 2004, prominent scientist Eugene Mallove lay on the ground bleeding and begging for help when his assailants returned to the crime scene with the intent of "making it look like a robbery" and continued their attack, according to testimony Tuesday in New London Superior Court.
Candace L. Foster, a 30-year-old mother of two who is charged as an accessory in Mallove's murder, provided a chilling account of the crime when she took the witness stand Tuesday at an evidentiary hearing for her former boyfriend, Chad Schaffer.
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Witness Describes Brutal Mallove Killing
By Greg Smith
Norwich Bulletin
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Eugene Mallove was beaten badly, but was still alive and asking for help when his attackers returned to make his assault look like a robbery, according to the woman charged in his death.
Murder suspect Candace L. Foster choked back tears and told a gruesome tale Tuesday in a New London courtroom, testifying as a key witness in the state's case against her former boyfriend and fellow murder suspect, Chad Schaffer.
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Charter member of Caltech's `Fraud Squad' authors book on scientists who break the rules
By Emma Gallegos
Pasadena Star News
Saturday, May 29, 2010
David Goodstein is on a mission to preserve the integrity of science.
The physics professor at the California Institute of Technology literally wrote the book on investigations into shoddy claims of cold fusion, false breakthroughs in immunology and other dubious science.
In "On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales From the Front Lines of Science," just out this past month, Goodstein chronicles his decade investigating cases in which researchers were accused of falsifying, fabricating or plagiarizing data.
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Judge makes probable cause finding in Mallove murder
By Karen Florin
The Day (Connecticut)
Thursday, June 24, 2010
New London Judge Susan B. Handy has found there is enough evidence to prosecute Chad M. Schaffer for the beating death of physicist Eugene Mallove in May 2004.
Schaffer, 32, is charged with murder, first-degree robbery and felony murder. He is accused of killing Mallove, 56, in the driveway of Mallove's mother's home at 119 Salem Turnpike. Mallove died of a crushed trachea.
Schaffer and his former girlfriend, Candace Foster, were arrested on April 1. Schaffer exercised his right to a probable cause hearing in which the state was required to convince a judge there is enough evidence to prosecute Schaffer.
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Judge finds probable cause in Mallove case
By Greg Smith
Norwich Bulletin
Thursday, June 24, 2010
A superior court judge in New London ruled that there is enough evidence to move forward in the case against Chad Schaffer in the May 14, 2004 beating death of scientist Eugene Mallove.
The probable cause hearing for Chad Schaffer, 32, of Norwich, finished today with testimony from lead investigator Norwich Police Det. James Curtis. Judge Susan B. Handy made her ruling based on previous testimony and what prosecutors say is a written confession by Schaffer. The burden of proof in a probable cause hearing is lower compared to an actual trial.
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Tearful suspect admits role in Mallove murder
By Karen Florin
The Day (Connecticut)
Friday, June 25, 2010
Confronted two months ago by detectives who told him "lying was not an option" and promised that he would see his children again, Chad M. Schaffer admitted his involvement in the 2004 killing of physicist Eugene Mallove, according to court testimony.
Detectives Corey Poore and James Curtis visited Schaffer, a 32-year-old restaurant worker, at his Taftville apartment on April 1 and conducted an interview in the yard that lasted nearly two hours and was secretly recorded.
The detectives let Schaffer know they had a lot of information and asked if he was willing to talk.
"He said yes, he would," Curtis testified at a court hearing Thursday. "He cried. He didn't wail, but he had tears in his eyes. He said what he did that night."
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