[mattdeboard]

>For his PhD thesis, he proved that a working hot fusion reactor would either consume more energy than it generates or spew as much radiation as existing nuclear power plants—a finding that did not endear him to many physicists and cut off some career options.

The science field doesn't really work like this, does it? You'd think if he definitively proved a particular thing there wouldn't be any animosity about it toward HIM. I can understand being pissed your funding gets cut off and irritated a thing you've been pursuing for years turns out to be a wild goose chase. But are the punitive measures alluded to in that last paragraph normal?

edit: Also wouldn't a "kill switch" be counterproductive with flu and other environmentally persistant diseases? Isn't the point of vaccinations that we train our body to fight the disease? I suppose in emergency situations you'd want to kill the virus outright, but I don't think being able to kill an arbitrary viral outbreak excludes the need for vaccinations and other public health programs.

[mquander]

Oh, you mean the sentence about how the eccentric scientist has been persecuted by the establishment for his contrarian work?

To me, that sounds so much like the output of a journalist's nearest-cliche algorithm that it's impossible to say whether there's any truth in it, or how much.

[pak]

Thank you. Sometimes I wish journalists writing about scientists were subject to the same peer-review process that scientists are. E.g.,

"One binds to viral double-stranded ribonucleic acid, a type of molecule found in all viruses."

Goddamnit, no it isn't (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#Baltimore_classification). Some viruses contain DNA, not RNA, in the capsid. The proposed treatment acts on dsRNA made after the virus has entered the cell, and the only hope of it working on DNA viruses is if sufficient dsRNA is produced during transcription of the viral genome (I'm not convinced—the citations for this in Rider's paper are weak).

[Retric]

Umm, the advantage if fusion is how much radiation is being produced from the waste products over time not how much radiation is being produces while it's running. All nuclear reactions be they fission or fusion release their energy as radiation either high energy photons or chunks of matter being blown from the nucleus at high energy levels. So, I really don't think the details of what was actually said are being summarized vary well.

EX: D+T fusion = 2 protons + 3 neutrons one of which does not get to stick around and 17.59 MeV worth of energy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deuterium-tritium_fusion.s... (The diffrence in energy comes from the conservation of momentum. ~1/4th the mass needs to go ~4x as fast to have the same momentum which takes ~4x the energy {e=v^2 x m=(4)^2 x (1/4)=4}.)