Quote:
Originally Posted by dan
Technology Review: Federal Research Funding Cut
...
It was supposed to be a year bringing sharp increases in
federal funding for physical-sciences research. Instead,
as a result of the final appropriations bill signed a
few weeks ago by Congress, fiscal year 2008 (the federal
fiscal year runs October 1 to September 30) brought cuts
that will cause hundreds of researchers to lose their
jobs, and it's putting the future of two important
international projects in jeopardy, including one to
make a large-scale fusion demonstration facility.
...
What's more, two international projects will receive no
funding at all for the remainder of the fiscal year. One
endeavor, the International Linear Collider project, is
being designed to answer some fundamental questions
about the universe, such as those concerning the nature
of dark matter.
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While that may have been the case in the US.A, it appears that research in these areas went ahead in other countries, as shown in this article (claiming success in cold fusion):
Cold Fusion back in the news | Alternative Energy Info
That article reports that researchers have used a process that forces deuterium gas under pressure into an evacuated cell that contains a matrix of zirconium oxide containing palladium nanoparticles; the deuterium is then absorbed by the palladium to produce dense deuterium where their nuclei are close enough to fuse, thereby releasing heat and helium. When they injected the deuterium gas, the temperature in the cell increased to about 70C degrees, which was the result of both chemical and nuclear reactions; but when the gas was turned off, the center of the cell remained significantly warmer than the cell wall for 50 hours...
To borrow the words of a "user comment" from that article post:
QUOTE:
"
While it would indeed be very good news if tangible and practical progress is made in this area, would it perhaps make more sense to focus on getting superconducting quantum devices to function at higher temperatures?"
In terms of linear collider projects also mentioned in dan's post, an article on recent progress made in that field has been already posted on this forum:
Colliding with nature's best-kept secrets