stratomorph

Unfortunately there's no mention of what it would take to produce anything more than a tabletop curiosity. It says, "After two to three weeks, the team found a small number of 'triple tracks' in the plastic..." How many is a small number? How much energy does that represent compared to the amount pumped in as electricity?

From reading the abstract on SpringerLink, I guess 9.6 MeV is released per neutron. At that neutron energy, about 650 billion neutrons per second would have to be released to produce a single watt, assuming perfect conversion. Is that reasonable? That seems high to me, but I'm not a physicist.

Without more information, it's a stretch to say this "revives hopes for cold fusion". Without being able to read the paper, it seems that the authors have avoided such claims. I guess "Evidence of Energetic Neutrons" wasn't the headline new Scientist needed. [Edit:typo]

It's refreshing to see such care taken to avoid conflating correlation with causation. Even when faced with such a complex system, you can chip away at the mystery if you apply some discipline.

Although I am a little curious about some of the less-mainstream theories: "Other hypotheses were untestable at best, such as claims that the bees were being abducted by aliens." With our pride, we always _assumed_ the aliens would _naturally_ want to abduct us!

This is handy for pointing out some common and boring circumlocution. That sort of fluff is tiring to read, and when I find a piece loaded with it, it tells me the author hadn't finished thinking through what he wanted to write, and that he never went back through to clean it up. Worse, people see such wandering prose in official settings and think it correct, and try to "dress up" their own writing, perpetuating the problem.

That said, I could probably comment more concisely, but a good local minimum is enough to be clear.