Running Hot and Cold It all started in 1989, when two chemists
at the University of Utah named Stanley Pons and Martin
Fleischmann believed they had succeeded in producing nuclear
fusion in a jar. Hundreds of researchers all over the world
scurried to reproduce the experiments, and failed. By the end of
that year, a panel of experts had conducted a Department of
Energy (DOE) review and concluded there was no basis for the
claims. Fifteen years later, the DOE decided to take another
look at the accumulated evidence over the last 15 years and re-
evaluate the cold fusion controversy. They still didn't find the
evidence sufficiently convincing to launch a federally-funded
research program. But they felt that funding agencies should
consider proposed projects on a case-by-case basis, provided
those proposals met "accepted scientific standards and undergo
the rigors of peer review." Heck, sometimes long shots pay off,
so why not throw some funding scraps into the hat? That's why
there are a couple of research progr