If you thought putting your kid's bike together was hard, you'd better sit down. Thiago Olson, a 17-year-old from outside Detroit, went and built himself a nuclear fusion reactor in his parents' basement. It took him over 1,000 hours, which is probably more time than you spent on that Huffy, but that's one impressive DIY project. The setup involves a vacuum chamber that gets filled with deuterium gas which then gets zapped with 40,000 volts of electricity. What results is a small amount of nuclear fusion. I'm no scientist, so I'm not sure if that can power his house or his neighborhood or what, but however much fusion he's charging up down there it's certainly more than I am. We're sure young Thiago has scholarship opportunities from all sorts of colleges, perhaps some as far away as North Korea or Iran. Go for it! The sky's the limit, dude! — Adam Frucci

MAKE: Blog, via Engadget