Lauren BironJuly 23, 2026When It Comes to Fusion, Materials Matter – Berkeley Lab – Berkeley Lab News CenterThat is kind of wild. As I recall it, they put hydrogen (or some isotope of hydrogen) in a metal bottle with a radiation detector. They tried swapping bottles (or new bottles) and the increased radiation always came the hydrogen bottle. The radiation rate was so low that it was tempting to believe it was an error in the experimental setup, cosmic rays, or just statistical noise. However, the team’s measurements showed an unexpected result: at these lower energies, the fusion rate leveled off into a plateau instead.