Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Feeds
105363 items (97572 unread) in 19 feeds
Friends
(1021 unread)
-
2 Star
(84 unread)
-
John Carrino
(12 unread)
-
Comments for Josh the Outspoken
(296 unread)
-
Josh (34 unread)
-
Planet Matt
(595 unread)
Build
(68091 unread)
-
MAKE Magazine
(20292 unread)
-
Instructables.com
(35006 unread)
-
Hack A Day
(5017 unread)
-
Toolmonger
(7776 unread)
Heads
(716 unread)
-
Exploration Through Example
-
Paul Graham: Unofficial RSS Feed (113 unread)
-
Stevey's Blog Rants
(34 unread)
-
Joel on Software (207 unread)
-
Gibson Blog
(239 unread)
-
Adventures in Bloggery (123 unread)
News
(27537 unread)
-
Slashdot (25203 unread)
-
Economist.com Global Agenda (1412 unread)
-
Ruby Inside
(922 unread)
fun
(207 unread)
-
Templar, Arizona
(207 unread)
Slashdot
-
Harder-Than-Diamond Natural Carbon Crystals Found
Posted: February 3rd, 2010, 3:08am MST by kdawson
HikingStick tips a piece from the science desk at MSNBC.com about a new, naturally occurring form of carbon found in a meteorite fragment. "Researchers were polishing a slice of the carbon-rich Havero meteorite that fell to Earth in Finland in 1971. When they then studied the polished surface they discovered carbon-loaded spots that were raised well above the rest of the surface — suggesting that these areas were harder than the diamonds used in the polishing paste... [G]raphite layers were shocked and heated enough to create bonds between the layers — which is exactly how humans manufacture diamonds... [The research] team took the next step and put the diamond-resistant crystals under the scrutiny of some very rigorous mineralogical analyzing instruments to learn how its atoms are lined up. That allowed them to confirm that they had, indeed, found a new 'phase' or polymorph of crystalline carbon as well as a type of diamond that had been predicted to exist decades ago, but had never been found in nature until now."