the real philosopher's stone

     The medieval myth of the philosopher's stone may not be as hare-brained as people once imagined. There is an entity that can turn lead into gold, perhaps, or hydrogen into iron--the sun. That's right, the sun. The fusion at the sun's core can combine atoms of hydrogen until they become atoms of iron. If hydrogen can become iron, perhaps lead can become gold.  Of course, if humans could do this, we would probably have so little lead that the price of lead would soar--and so much gold that the price of gold would plummet--so it might not make much financial difference, in the end.