Caltech professor David Goodstein has a new book out that mentions “cold fusion”: On Fact and Fraud: Cautionary Tales from the Front Lines of Science.

The chapter on “cold fusion” appears to be a near-verbatim copy of his Accountability in Research paper, published in 2000.

That paper states that the original article was written in 1994, and first appeared in The American Scholar.

Goodstein did not appear to cite the provenance of that chapter in his book.

First two sentences from 2010 book chapter:
“On December 6-9, 1993, the Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion took place in Hawaii, on the island of Maui. The event had all the trappings of a normal scientific meeting.”

First two sentences from 1994 article:
“On 6-9 December, 1993, the Fourth International Conference on Cold Fusion took place on the island of Maui, in Hawaii. It had all the trappings of a normal scientific meeting.”

A Connecticut judge has found probable cause to conduct a trial in the 2004 beating death of LENR journalist Eugene Mallove.

At a hearing today, New London Superior Court Judge Susan B. Handy ruled that Chad Schaffer must stand trial

However, Norwich Bulletin reporter Greg Smith, who covered the hearing, noted some weaknesses with the case.

“The case against Schaffer seemed to rely heavily on statements gathered from police rather than physical evidence,” Smith wrote. “No physical evidence linking Schaffer to the crime was presented at the hearing.”

At the hearing, the lead police investigator cited a confession from Schaffer and witness statements. Schaffer’s former girlfriend, Candace Foster, has testified as a witness.

Schaffer said in a written statement that he was present at the murder but that his cousin Mozzelle Brown committed the murder.

Here are some unanswered questions about the case:

1. Why did Schaffer, according to Foster, think that he “had to make it look like a robbery”?
2. After Schaffer allegedly attacked Mallove, did Schaffer retrieve his possessions from the Dumpster?
3. If Brown was, as Schaffer said, primarily responsible for the assault, what was Brown’s motive?
4. If Schaffer was somehow trying to protect himself by attempting to make it look like a robbery, didn’t he put himself at even greater risk by returning to the scene of the crime?
5. Why didn’t Schaffer just go home, tell Foster that he got in a bar fight and leave it at that?