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The puppets may be wooden and the aircraft propelled on nylon threads but thanks to British physicists, at least the fusion reactors in a forthcoming production of Captain Scarlet will be accurate.

Thunderbirds creator Gerry Anderson has been fact finding at the world's largest fusion experiment JET, at the Culham Science Centre near Oxford, in preparation for a new series or movie of the cult puppet science fiction show.

Mr Anderson, who shares the Culham physicists' dream of a fusion-powered civilisation, was impressed with what he saw. He said it "means the central idea of our plot will be believable".

He is set to deliver the science week public lecture at Culham next March.