Could you discover a new molecule?
VIRGINIA TECH'S BUCKYEGG: Secret's in the stuffing - Researchers fill 'buckyballs' with metals in hopes they'll have medical applications
BY A.J. HOSTETLER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Oct 26, 2006
Virginia chemists laid an egg -- a rule-breaking, carbon-based egg that someday could help track cancer cells.
The unexpected egg is a misshapen "buckyball," a slightly squashed version of the round carbon cages called buckminsterfullerenes, which won their discoverers a Nobel Prize in 1996.
Virginia Tech has been stuffing hollow buckyballs, or fullerenes, with metals in hopes they could someday be used as contrast agents for imaging or tracing cancer cells.
Where'd they come from?
The buckyball molecule is a third form of carbon molecules -- the others are graphite and diamond -- found in the mid-1980s. For their work in the discovery, Robert F. Curl Jr., Sir Harold W. Kroto and Richard E. Smalley shared the Nobel Prize in 1996 in chemistry. The new all-carbon molecule was named for architect Buckminster Fuller, creator of the geodesic dome, which the soccer-ball shaped buckminsterfullerene (or "buckyball") resembles.
Read the full Richmond Times-Dispatch article.
Read the article detailing the discovery of buckyballs.
The International Astronomical Unit (IAU) now recognizes 8 planets:
Pluto Demoted
Pluto: 1930 - 2006
Recognized as a planet in 1930 and reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
You might ask, "So what? What does it matter whether Pluto is a planet?"
This decision doesn't change Pluto at all. Its classification as a dwarf planet does, however, clarify the scientific community's view of Pluto. Advances in technology and increased exploration are adding to our knowledge of our universe and allowing the discovery of previously unidentified astronomical bodies. From this Middle School Science teacher's perspective, the only change is our perception. The real significance, also unchanged, is the uniqueness of our own world - PLANET Earth!
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