The Bulletin of the Catholic Association of Scientists and Engineers

February 7, 2005

February Meeting Announcement: There will be a meeting of the members of the Catholic Association of Scientists and Engineers on Thursday evening, February 17, 2005 at 7:30 pm. at the James Bates Hall at Ascension Catholic Church, 12700 Lanham-Severn Road, Bowie, Maryland 20720, Tel: 301 262 2227.

Dr. Scott Chubb
Naval Research Laboratory
Washington, DC 20375-5351
will speak on

Unforeseen factors so seriously disrupted initial discussions of "Cold Fusion" that within 6 weeks of the initial announcements, meaningful debate about the subject, effectively ended. In particular, through wide-spread dissemination of pre-prints by FAX machines and the Internet, separate papers by Pons and Fleischmann , and the Jones et al research team at BYU, de facto, were published in a non-standard, incomplete form that seriously impaired subsequent review of their results and of related work by other scientists. Also, because of an unfortunate coincidence, during the review of a DOE proposal by Pons and Fleischmann, an inappropriate form of competition evolved between their group and the BYU group that led to such a serious breakdown of the adjudication process that even after two years, prominent individuals who had been involved in adjudicating the claims remained confused about them. In fact, not only have these key aspects of the initial "debate" (or "lack of debate") and subsequent events been questioned by scientists, the events, scientific dynamic (or lack of it) and subsequent history have become a topic for mainstream journals of Ethics in Science, dealing with questions related to the adjudication of science, and the dissemination of scientific information.

Despite the serious breakdown in the scientific process, work in replicating the effects observed by Pons and Fleischmann and by Jones not only continued, but with time, new effects were observed. We now know that the effects observed by Pons and Fleischmann and by Jones were quite real. We also know that in both cases, the associated phenomena were triggered by nuclear reactions. However, Pons and Fleischmann did not observe a "Colder Version" of conventional fusion. They found something else: a new form of nuclear fusion that does not create high energy particles or radiation. In fact, with time, it has become apparent that other forms of nuclear reactions can take place in solids, in which the only by-products appear to be new elements and heat. As a consequence, as opposed to "Cold Fusion", Pons and Fleischmann actually discovered a form of Low Energy Nuclear Reaction (LENR). In the talk, I will provide an overview of the "Cold Fusion" controversy, and I will summarize recent work, related not only to the initial claims by Pons and Fleischmann, but to the more general LENR field.

Dr. Scott R. Chubb
Code 7233
Naval Research Laboratory
Washington, DC 20375-5351

EMAIL: scott.chubb@nrl.navy.mil
PHONE: 202-767-5270, PHONE at NIST: 301-975-5015
FAX: 202-404-5689

March Meeting Announcement: It is planned that Brother Dunstan Robidoux, OSB will be our speaker at the March 17, 2005 meeting. He will speak on the idea of science in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Lourdes Water Cure: One of our CAS+E friends reported to Dr. Kelly that some Lourdes water that she had been given was used in obtaining a rapid unexplainable cure for her brother’s frozen hands during the recent severe storms in the area near Eire, New York. The CAS+E friend gave the Lourdes water to her sister who applied it with prayers to her brother’s swollen hands while waiting to leave for medical help. The swelling quickly went away and the brother has recovered dramatically. I have given the details to Dr. Ralph Coan, MD so he can consider whether or not to investigate this healing further.

Dr. Austgen reports: Dr. John Austgen, DDS has sent a letter with a copy of the New York times article on the statements of the Spanish Bishop’s conference on the use of condoms to try to fight AIDS. If AIDS is not caused by a virus but by the breakdown of the immune system caused by use of drugs and filthy sexual practices, the anti-condom argument is even stronger. Someone needs to fund the research to settle this question.

President’s Message: The CAS+E web site is up now at www.cas-e.org . I invite any members who are experienced web workers to help with this web site.