Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:A San Francisco, California-based nuclear fusion startup says it’s found a way to create a stable isotope of gold through the decay of a mercury isotope. This can be generated using a standard fuel mix for fusion reactors, deuterium and tritium (both of which are forms of hydrogen), to create energy in the plasma of a fusion reactor,” Bevan writes. Neutrons with energies above 6 million electron volts are required to transform mercury-198 into gold.”But the big, toroidal-shaped elephant in the room is that scientists are far from creating a viable commercial fusion reactor. Instead of waiting around for years to test its theory, Marathon Fusion relied on what’s known as a “digital twin,” a hyper-realistic computer model that simulates the physics and radioactivity of a nuclear fusion reactor. This hypothetical reactor’s alchemical byproduct wouldn’t be like the old-fashioned gold in the ground that’s obsessed humans throughout recorded history.