Buckyballs

Researchers at Carnegie Science have developed an ultrahard diamond glass. Made entirely of crushed “soccerballs” of carbon, the new material also has high thermal conductivity and could find use in electronics.

The world of atoms and molecules is tricky to study, not just because it’s so small but because events occur so quickly at that scale. Now, researchers have captured slow motion video of the movements of single molecules at 1,600 frames per second.

Astronomers have detected complex carbon molecules – previously only thought to be made in a lab setting – in interstellar space. Now scientists have created them under space-like conditions, hinting at how they can naturally form between the stars.

Carbon atoms can form graphene sheets and buckyballs. Scientists have theorized that a third variation should exist with negative curvature, known as schwarzite. An international team has now found a way to create these structures, which may have unusual electrical, magnetic and optical properties.

Scientists at the Max Planck Institute may have found a new superconducting state of matter that is better suited to high temperatures, in a development that brings the dream of mainstream maglev trains and highly energy-efficient electronics a little closer to reality.

By altering the quantum interactions of the electrons in the atoms of a metal's atoms, scientists from the University of Leeds have generated magnetism in metals that aren’t normally magnetic. This move could one day reduce our reliance on rare or toxic metals in a range of fields,

Stanford Institute scientists have created a molecule-sized electronic component – a diode – just a few nanometers long, that may one day help replace much bulkier diodes and other semiconductors found on today's integrated circuits to produce incredibly compact, super-fast electronic devices.

Buckyballs (or Buckminsterfullerene), the soccer ball-like structures of 60 carbon atoms, have a new playmate. Previously only theorized, researchers from Brown University in the US and Shanxi and Tsinghua Universities in China have been the first to experimentally observe a boron "buckyball."

Researchers at Stanford University have developed an experimental solar cell made entirely of carbon.

Scientists have discovered a new hybrid substance that is able to dent diamonds.

A French study has found that including buckyballs in a rat's diet can result in greatly increased lifespan.

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has identified the signature of graphene in two small galaxies outside our own.