Researchers at Purdue University have new evidence supporting earlier findings by other scientists who designed an inexpensive "tabletop" device that uses sound waves to produce nuclear fusion reactions.

The technology, in theory, could lead to a new source of clean energy and a host of portable detectors and other applications.

The new findings were detailed in a peer-reviewed paper appearing in the May issue of the journal Nuclear Engineering and Design. The paper was written by Yiban Xu, a post-doctoral research associate in the School of Nuclear Engineering, and Adam Butt, a graduate research assistant in both nuclear engineering and the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

Altair's Developments Pave the Way for a New Generation of Rechargeable Batteries

RENO, NV. – February 10, 2005 – Altair Nanotechnologies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALTI) announced today that it has achieved a breakthrough in Lithium Ion battery electrode materials, which will enable a new generation of rechargeable battery to be introduced into the marketplace, as well as create new markets for rechargeable batteries. These new materials allow rechargeable batteries to be manufactured that have three times the power of existing Lithium Ion batteries at the same price and with recharge times measured in a few minutes rather than hours.

Claims of cold fusion are intriguing, but not convincing. That is the conclusion of an 18-member scientific panel tasked with reviewing research in the area.

The findings, which were released on 1 December by the US Department of Energy, rekindle a 15-year-old debate over whether nuclear fusion can occur at room temperature.

According to the report, the panel was "split approximately evenly" on the question of whether cold experiments were actually producing power in the form of heat. But members agreed that there is not enough evidence to prove that cold fusion has occurred, and they complained that much of the published work was poorly documented.

With oil near $50 a barrel, alternatives to gasoline are attracting more attention - including fuel cells, devices that convert hydrogen into electric current with no waste products except heat and pure water.

Fuel cells have found their way into power systems for laptop computers and into many experimental cars. The main drawback to automotive use of fuel cells, though, has been their cost, which at $100,000 can be 25 times the $4,000 for a gasoline engine of equal power. Lately, some companies, including Honda, have been trying to come up with cheaper versions of the most expensive part of a fuel cell: the membrane that takes the hydrogen fuel and separates it into protons and electrons.

This morning, a California company, PolyFuel, plans to announce that it has achieved a breakthrough in fuel-cell membranes by using an alternative material: a hydrocarbon that it says costs only about half as much per square meter.

Compared with the fluorine compounds that are the most commonly used for membranes in fuel cells now under testing, PolyFuel says that hydrocarbon membranes allow production of more electricity per square centimeter of membrane. That could mean that a fuel cell could produce the same power as a fluorine-membrane version, but would be smaller and lighter, further adding to efficiency, according to the company.

Later this month, the U.S. Department of Energy will receive a report from a panel of experts on the prospects for cold fusion—the supposed generation of thermonuclear energy using tabletop apparatus. It's an extraordinary reversal of fortune: more than a few heads turned earlier this year when James Decker, the deputy director of the DOE's Office of Science, announced that he was initiating the review of cold fusion science. Back in November 1989, it had been the department's own investigation that determined the evidence behind cold fusion was unconvincing. Clearly, something important has changed to grab the department's attention now.

Tiny. Cheap. No moving parts. Aerosol cans and UAVs may never be the same.

It sounds implausible, if not impossible: a pump the size of an Altoid that can replace the pressure tanks, seals, valves, fittings, exposed wicks, airflow pathways, and other complex mechanical parts of every small combustion device. Think camp stoves, lanterns - any portable fuel-burning equipment used for cooking, lighting, or heating. And the potential of this remarkable invention, called a capillary pump, goes far beyond redesigned camping gear to small generators, fuel cells, even unmanned aerial vehicles.

Vapore, the company behind the pump, has already sold more than a dozen $5,000 evaluation kits to several national labs, military contractors, and manufacturers. "The other day, I got a call from a Fortune 500 company that sells air fresheners and insecticides," says Vapore CEO Rob Lerner. "They're considering the pump as a way to eliminate disposable aerosol cans."

Amidst a prolonged stalemate over where to build the world's largest nuclear fusion facility, the US is halting work on a homegrown fusion project. The decision caused concern among researchers at a fusion meeting earlier this week.

The US is pinning its hopes on ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor), which aims to lay the groundwork for using nuclear fusion as an inexhaustible and clean energy source.

But the project has been stalled since December 2003 because its six members - the US, the European Union, China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia – cannot agree on where to build the facility. The EU, China, and Russia favour the French city of Cadarache, while the US, South Korea, and Japan back the Japanese town of Rokkashomura.

The deadlock has persisted even after both the EU and Japan sweetened their offers in June, each agreeing to pay half of ITER's estimated $5 billion construction costs to host the reactor. And rumours have spread that some parties might splinter off to build the reactor on their own.

Now, the standoff has lasted so long that the US has reached a deadline on another fusion project. The deadline was set in 2002 by a committee advising the US Department of Energy (DOE) to proceed with a smaller project called FIRE (Fusion Ignition Research Experiment) if ITER negotiations had stalled by July 2004.

A recent advance in light-emitting diodes may illuminate the path to replacing light bulbs with LEDs within the next five years, according to researchers.

Fred Schubert, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, N.Y.), claims to have invented a 99-percent efficient reflector that promises to speed the replacement of light bulbs with LEDs.

"Until now, all lighting systems, especially incandescent bulbs, generated more heat than light. But our 99-percent efficient reflectors for LEDs makes them the first candidate for light-bulb replacement that generates more light than heat," said Schubert.

As temperatures soar this summer, so do electric bills. Researchers at the University of Houston are striving toward decreasing those costs with the next revolution in power generation.

Imagine a power source so small, yet so efficient, that it could make cumbersome power plants virtually obsolete while lowering your electric bill. A breakthrough in thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is currently being refined in labs at the University of Houston, making that dream a reality.

Methods and apparatus for distributing power and data to devices coupled to the human body are described. The human body is used as a conductive medium, e.g., a bus, over which power and/or data is distributed. Power is distributed by coupling a power source to the human body via a first set of electrodes. One or more devise to be powered, e.g., peripheral devices, are also coupled to the human body via additional sets of electrodes. The devices may be, e.g., a speaker, display, watch, keyboard, etc. A pulsed DC signal or AC signal may be used as the power source. By using multiple power supply signals of differing frequencies, different devices can be selectively powered. Digital data and/or other information signals, e.g., audio signals, can be modulated on the power signal using frequency and/or amplitude modulation techniques.

Wouldn’t you like to be able to read off the screen of your laptop in direct sunlight? Your mobile phone battery to last much, much longer? Or your next flat screen TV to be less expensive, much flatter, and even flexible? Thanks to a breakthrough technology called Organic Displays, this could soon be reality.

Although the technology behind Organic LED (OLED) displays is pure chemistry, the applications are much more everyday - mobile telephone and television screens, laptop and stereo displays, car navigation systems, or even billboards.

NEC has created a battery that can be recharged in 30 seconds, allowing 80 hours of use at the same level of power as nickel-hydrogen cells. NEC's organic radical battery technology will be built into future NEC mobile products, but the company won't say when. The concept will be discussed at the 12th International Meeting on Lithium batteries in Nara, Japan on June 27.

Whether outraged or supportive about DOE's planned reevaluation of cold fusion, most scientists remain deeply skeptical that it's real.

The cold fusion claims made in 1989 by B. Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann didn't hold up. But they did spawn a small and devoted coterie of researchers who continue to investigate the alleged effect. Cold fusion die-hards say their data from the intervening 15 years merit a reevaluation-- and a place at the table with mainstream science. Now they have the ear of the US Department of Energy.

New underwater turbines could be cheap and eco-friendly.

A British company has invented a simple tidal power system that is relatively easy to install and has little impact on its environment. The device could soon be added to our range of renewable energy resources, and be used to bring power to remote seaside locations.

The TidEl system uses floating turbines that are anchored to the seabed by chains. The underwater windmills drift back and forth with the tide, so they point in the best direction to get power from the spinning blades.