The DoE does a whole lot more than just "supply power" and "energy" research. It runs a large number of national laboratories including Brookehaven, Fermi Lab, Jefferson Lab, Oak Ridge, SLAC, etc. Many of these labs are not single focus and have research facilities ranging from biofuels to medicine. For example many cancer treatment technologies have originated from DoE labs, I would hope that most people here would agree that cancer research is important :)

What the heck is a "hogel"?
Voxel is the correct term for the volume represented by a 3D pixel...

NASA is also working on the LENR project
http://blog.newenergytimes.com/2011/05/06/nasa-working-on-lenr-replication-and-theory-confirmation/

I hear those people recently got a visit from the Department of Redundancy Department

What, no cracks about conducting research whilst drinking a certain brown ale?

What about any other companies/institutions who have been working on something similar also for several years? It looks like Venter's patent application is so broad that it would effectively shut down these other players who have been doing separate work in parallel. The patent system should not be a race. Sure, some guys did something special and they should be rewarded for it, the next guy also does something special but takes a little bit longer and is all of the sudden infringing upon the first guy. They both did hard work, they should both be rewarded.

http://www.myalli.com/ =)

Was anyone else reminded of this quote? "If, he thought to himself, such amachine is a virtual impossibility, then it must logically be a finite improbability. So all I have to do in order to make one, is to work out exactly how improbable it is, feed that figure into the finite improbability generator, give it a fresh cup of really hot tea ... and turn it on!"

I wonder what the PvP system would be like...

I recall a study done several years ago by MIT students regarding tin foil hats. Apparently certain folds will actually amplify certain frequencies!
http://people.csail.mit.edu/rahimi/helmet/

Why actually go outside and get wet and risk drowning when I can use Google Maps to take a virtual tour of the river from the comfort of my own home! I can even read reviews from actual kayakers on that river and decide for myself if I liked the experience or not.

I had a Braun electrical toothbrush 10 years ago that used induction to recharge its battery =)

Take a look at the Java Media Framework. http://java.sun.com/javase/technologies/desktop/media/jmf/