brilliant, ms lazen, just astounding, really ...
energy storage breakthroughs are sorely needed to wean us off fossils. too bad the energy mafia will see to it that explosives get all the research (taxpayer) dollars.

Nitratoxy? Never heard of it. 1,1,1-bicyclo anything compounds are unstable; put four of them in one place, and you\'ll find it is much easier to make in silico than in vitrio.
Now, I\'m not sayin\', but good luck to the researchers on this one. Make sure that your fifth-grader is wearing closed-toe shoes when she starts synthetic work. Explosives are a great inspiration for time immemorial. Highly dense oxidant/fuel combinations will certainly make for a good fuel source, if it can be extracted in a controlled fashion.

@hourglass - some of the greatest inventions in history became viable products because of the desire to weaponize them. As long as money gets put into the project, there\'s nothing to say that both explosives and energy storage wouldn\'t get research time, especially if they both benefit the military.

When later asked about the new molecule, Clara stated, \"I thought I was making a pony.\"

Matt, that was the cover that Leon Panetta gave her....

It was a 1 in 10,000,000 shot that someone recognized it and was willing to research it. I wonder how many other discoveries are out there that never get seen. In any event, good for Clara!

So she made an arrangement of balls and straws that the scientists hadn\'t thought of before... makes her a chemical engineering genius. Noteworthy, good for her, but she\'s still just a fifth-grader. Are you smarter than a fifth-grader? Maybe we should be giving all our elementary school kids some molecular puzzle sets and checking their results into the molecular database. Isn\'t there an app for that?

\"Child creates molecule\" is a gross miscarriage of journalism. The child put together a bunch of balls and sticks to resemble a pony. I think all the credit goes to the teacher (and the prof he consulted with) for realizing the child\'s doodle could actually be an interesting molecule.
If you have an infinite number of monkeys typing, you still need a patient English major wading through all of it to be able to find Shakespeare\'s Hamlet among all the gibberish...

funny, Matt. I see the pony too.

If this molecule was created by a 10 year old, why is some bearded bloke in the photo and not the child?