Thanks for the links. Neither of those articles say anything about cold fusion. They discuss the possibility of a cold fission.
From the Discover article: "A growing cadre of scientists now suspect that Pons and Fleischmann’s [1989] observations were the result not of fusion but of more plausible physical processes." "Fusion requires enormous temperatures and pressures, which is why it occurs only in stars and bombs." The first section is even titled, "Cold, Yes, But Not Fusion."
What I get from reading those articles, is that scientists think there might have been something to the 1989 experiments, but that it's not fusion. Instead, they believe it's a clean, low-energy form of fission. While interesting, this does not confirm the existence of cold fusion.
From the Forbes article, it appears that scientists are now referring to it as "low-energy nuclear reactions" (LENR). Consistent with the Discover article, this is described as a clean form a fission that scientists are currently researching. That's a far cry from saying that LENR exists in the wild, let alone cold fusion.
Thank you for providing the links. I was actually unaware of the research in LENR before, and I'm happy to have learned about it.
Thanks for the references. It is as you say: Science in general is getting over it's somewhat childish dislike for anything that has to do with "Cold Fusion" and there is some earnest research going on. And why not? If there is a chance cold fusion may work it is sensible to find out if it is indeed so. Or if not.
So far they have a few interesting ideas and some unexplained experiments. But not more. No hard evidence. Just because scientists are taking it seriously again does not mean there really is something there. Compare it to MythBusters: "We've heard about this cool thing - let's see if there is something to it."
If you actually read those references, it's clear that they're not talking about cold fusion. It's rather a cold form of fission.
The difference is important, because our current understanding of fusion is that it can only occur at extremely high temperature and pressure (because that's what it takes to fuse two atoms into a larger atom). Fission (the splitting of atoms), on the other hand, happens to atoms without added energy or pressure.
If cold fusion were real, it would overturn our understanding of fusion. Cold fission does not, as far as I know, contradict our understanding of fission. That's why it's not surprising that scientists are taking cold fission seriously. But they are not taking cold fusion seriously.
