From fraud to scientific fortune [Energy Nuclear Fusion]

THE RUINS ARE ghostly, silent. The crumbling buildings and labs - hidden on an island that's drowning in a dense, green forest - look as if they are an abandoned villain's lair from an early James Bond movie. And in a way, they are a villain's making - they're all that remains of a top-secret project, 'Proyecto Huemul', which turned out to be one of the biggest and most expensive frauds in scientific history - and ironically also became the foundation of a scientific success story. Tiny Isle Huemul, with an area of just two square kilometres, is covered in alerce trees; it resembles the head of a giant crocodile taking a snooze on a sunny August afternoon, poking out of the mesmerising deep blue waters of Lake Nahuel Huapi in Patagonia, amid the snow-capped mountains of the Argentinian Andes.