Fun_People Archive
18 Aug
What's New for Aug 18, 2000

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 100 14:06:38 -0700
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Subject: What's New for Aug 18, 2000

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WHAT'S NEW   Robert L. Park   Friday, 18 Aug 00   Washington, DC

1. NULL HYPOTHESIS: DO ASTRONAUTS SUFFER MAGNETIC DEFICIENCY?  I must tell
you, I bought a pair of Florsheim MagneForce shoes this week (WN 11 Aug
00).  I have not been sick since.  More on my new shoes in a later issue.
Today, I want to share another Gary Null quote from the free brochure
Florsheim gave me (at $125 the shoes were not free): "90-95% of health
problems astronauts experienced after early space flights were eliminated
when magnets were put in space suits and space capsules to counter the
effects of traveling outside the earth's magnetic field." That's remarkable,
since early flights never got beyond low-Earth orbit where the field is
essentially unchanged.  Nevertheless, we felt obliged to ask NASA.  Answer:
There has never been a magnet in a space suit.

2. BLACKLIGHT: SUIT AGAINST THE PATENT OFFICE FAILS.  BlackLight Power's
plans to go public with an estimated $1B stock offering are presumably on
hold.  You may recall that on 15 Feb BLP was awarded a patent on a process
for putting hydrogen atoms into a "state below the ground state," shrinking
them into teeny little things called "hydrinos" (WN 18 Feb 00).  A second
patent dealing with hydrino chemistry was set for issuance two weeks later.
But on 17 Feb the Patent Office withdrew the second patent, and opened up
the first for reexamination.  One patent official was concerned that the
BLP technology involves perpetual motion and "cold fusion."  With its
intellectual property somewhere in patent purgatory, BlackLight filed suit
in Federal Court against the Commissioner of Patents.  Tuesday, Judge Emmet
Sullivan ruled the Patent Office action was "neither arbitrary nor
capricious."

3. INFINITE ENERGY: EEOC RULES THAT COLD FUSION IS A RELIGION.  Paul
LaViolette was terminated by the Patent Office on 9 Apr 99.  He had been
recruited by patent examiner Tom Valone, who issued an e-mail appeal for
"all able-bodied free energy technologists" to "infiltrate" the Patent
Office (Science, V.284, p.1254, May 99).  It was Valone, you will recall,
that organized the much- traveled Conference on Future Energy (WN 30 Apr
99).  Claiming he was fired because of his belief in cold fusion, LaViolette
turned to the Equal Employment Opportunities Office.  He argued that his
belief in cold fusion amounted to a religious belief.  Actually, LaViolette
believes in lots of stuff, like the B-2 bomber relies on antigravity
technology (WN 20 Nov 98).  Anyway, on 7 July the EEOC ruled that cold
fusion is indeed protected religious belief.  This appears to confirm what
many have been saying all along.

4. SPY HYSTERIA: FBI AGENT BACKS DOWN IN WEN HO LEE BAIL HEARING.  This is
the third bail hearing for the Los Alamos scientist, who has been jailed
under harsh conditions since December.  An FBI agent, who claimed under
oath in December that Lee used deception to gain access to the downloaded
files, now acknowledges that his testimony was in error.  The hearing is
still going on.

THE AMERICAN PHYSICAL SOCIETY (Note: Opinions are the author's and are not
necessarily shared by the APS, but they should be.)

© 2000 Peter Langston