Shades of Pons-Fleischmann, 1989, perhaps? Or possibly not…? Newsday is reporting UCLA Researchers Produce Nuclear Fusion: “In the latest attempt to create nuclear fusion under laboratory conditions, scientists reported they achieved it in a tabletop experiment that uses a strong electric field generated by a small crystal.”

Coincidentally, last night I was finishing up the wonderful new book A Different Universe by Robert Lauglin. His comments on the cold fusion scandal:

The cold fusion example is dear to my heart because I was in an office with a nuclear expert when a journalist phoned him and asked him for comments on the [Pons-Fleischmann] paper. It was probably the closest I have ever come to dying of a heart attack, for we were both suffocating with laughter reading the pages, each funnier than the last, as they slowly crept out of the FAX machine…. [Their] claim made no sense at all quantum-mechanically. The energy scales of ordinary chemistry are not right for catalyzing nuclear reactions. But it turned out that enough people did not believe in quantum mechanics, were willing to distort its complexities to their own ends, or simply viewed its practitioners as con artists that the voices of reason went unheard…. [This led to work that] wound up squandering between $50 million and $100 million of taxpayer money.

In the present case the claims are more modest, but a healthy skepticism is definitely warranted.