OK, so you can’t build a fission weapon with old smoke detectors.

But what you *can* do is attempt to build a breeder reactor with them.

You probably won’t succeed, but you can turn your mom’s garden shed into a Superfund waste cleanup site.

You can do all of this in (wait for it)

Commerce Township, Michigan.

The hilarous story is in

“The Radioactive Boy Scout: When a Teenager Attempts to Build a Breeder Reactor,” by Ken Silverstein. Harper’s Magazine, November 1998, p. 59

Harper’s does not have on-line content. The bastards.

Woo-hoo! Here’s an abstracted version the story, evidently published in Reader’s Digest (the original is much (much!) longer and better).

Highly recommended.

-Steve [similarly: Mita]