Under pressure from Congress, Purdue University has started a new investigation into possible research misconduct by Rusi Taleyarkhan, a faculty member who claimed in a 2002 paper in Science that he had achieved sonofusion in an experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (see Physics Today, April 2002, page 16). The new investigation comes after a staff report by the subcommittee on investigations and oversight of the House Committee on Science and Technology sharply criticized earlier, more limited investigations by Purdue officials into issues related to the publication of Taleyarkhan’s research.
Taleyarkhan, in an e-mail to the New York Times, called the congressional staff report “a gross travesty of justice.”
In 2006 Purdue set up a fact-finding committee that focused not on the validity of Taleyarkhan’s original research but on “independent” follow-up papers confirming the research. Those papers listed as coauthors two graduate students who worked with Taleyarkhan....
