A useful thing to do with Carbon

In case anybody missed it, two smart guys from The University of Manchester just got a Nobel Prize for Physics. The prize was for their work on graphene, a material composed of a single layer of carbon atoms in a chicken-wire formation. (Chicken wire - that's a technical term, by the way.)

Graphene is 200 times stronger than steel, if you scaled it up to the thickness of cling film and stretched it over a cup of coffee, it could hold up the weight of a truck bearing down on the point of a pencil.

"Carbon, the basis of all known life on earth, has surprised us once again" said the Royal Academy.

(PS Did you notice that one of the recipients also won The Ig Nobel Prize - for levitating frogs in a magnetic field? I kid you not. The image below is for real, you can download the research paper here.)