The newest form of carbon is almost nothing at all - but it will stick to a refrigerator for a few hours. Carbon was known to come in four configurations: diamond crystals, flat sheets of graphite, soccer-ball-shaped cages known as bucky balls and rolled-up cylinders called nanotubes. The new form also consists of narrow tubes, but the tubes are connected in a willowy lattice. The surprise discovery is that nanofoam, unlike the other four forms of carbon, is magnetic. In the first few hours after it forms, nanofoam is attractive enough to stick to a refrigerator. The magnetism then wanes and disappears. It is one of the airiest materials known; a gallon of nanofoam weighs about a quarter of an ounce. - New York Times News Service.
Courtesy: The Hindu, Madurai, details not available.
Wikipedia articles on "Nanofoam" and "CARBON":
Grateful thanks to New York Times News Service, The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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