> "We're talking about a new field of science that's a hybrid between chemistry and physics."

I already saw articles about that in Russian magazine "Technic for youngers" ("Техника - молодёжи"/"Tehnika - molodeji") about 20 years ago. A man (I cannot find article) experimented with middle energy range (around 0.1MeV) nuclear reactions. He used modified welding machine to generate high power, which he used to fuse alloy of metals. Then he analysed results and found new metals and non-metals in alloy. He created theory about stable nuclear fractions, similar to chemistry, which can be transmitted between nucleus at much lower energies than typical nuclear reaction without damaging of nucleus.

However, magazine was very popular due to science fiction. ;-)