DailyDirt: Living In A Material World

Bleeding Edge

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

At a fundamental level, everything is made of the same stuff. But thanks to the countless ways that matter can be combined and recombined at every level from the macro down to the subatomic, the material universe is one of infinite variety with lots of unexplored territory. Here are some recent developments that remind us how big the universe’s Lego set really is:

• Researchers have combined nickel with an organic compound to create a self-assembling material that is extremely similar to graphene but with fewer limitations. The material shares graphene’s high conductivity, but is also potentially more suited to applications like computer chips and solar cells. [url]
• Not all new materials are created in a lab — a mining company has discovered a new mineral that is unlike any known mineral or artificial compound. “Putnisite” is composed of strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen in the form of purple crystals with pink streaks. [url]
• The periodic table is about to grow following the successful synthesis of the superheavy Element 117. There’s still some review to be done, after which the discoverers will propose a name for the new element. [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: elements, materials