Tabletop nuclear fusion reached by UCLA scientists

Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles have achieved a small-scale nuclear fusion in a tabletop experiment. While the created energy was too small to provide us with cheap fusion power it might have uses in medicine, spacecraft propulsion, the oil drilling industry and homeland security.

The scientists will report their findings in the Thursday issue of Nature. Tabletop fusion has been claimed before but has been met with skepticism and even derision by physicists.

"This doesn't have any controversy in it because they're using a tried and true method," David Ruzic, professor of nuclear and plasma engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, told The Associated Press. "There's no mystery in terms of the physics."

Read more about the fusion experiment at MSNBC