Side note for the aestheticists amongst us: Isn't it likely that a hexagonal geometry of pico-snowflakes is a generic form which is reflected in structures all the way down to dense hydrogen? It's no coincidence that iron oxide as catalyst, takes on the classic hexagonal nanostructure, and this geometry becomes reflected in a most stable form of dense hydrogen (LiH6 and others)... and then reflected the other way, in snowflakes or gems and rocks. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269304006860
Of further interest is a hint at how LENR could be explained. if, that is . it is found (via Holmlid) that nucleons are actually less difficult to disintegrate than they are to fuse (via UDD symmetry-breaking where the baryon octet resists becoming a nucleon sextet): http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/nobel-prize-in-physics-fo r-beautiful-symmetry-breaking-discoveries.html We've talked about D'Arcy Thompson here before. He was the Scottish biologist and mathematician remembered for "On Growth and Form" (1917) possibly the most timeless book of science since "Principia". Peter Medawar, Nobel Laureate, calls it "the finest work of literature in all the annals of science that have been recorded in the English tongue." Even without the full picture (or the necessary proof) there can be a hidden realization which almost jumps out at you, when enough pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are fitted together .