“An international team of researchers including scientists at the Carnegie Institution has discovered a new chemical compound that consists of a single element: boron. Chemical compounds are conventionally defined as substances consist of two or more elements, but the researchers found that at high pressure and temperature pure boron can assume two distinct forms that bond together to create a novel ‘compound’ called boron boride.”
These days everyone’s all about the genetic engineering and nanotechnology, but chemistry and materials science are still super cool.
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Coincidentally, earlier this week on a late night radio show (Art Bell or it’s replacement) I heard part of a report on how Boron is a very potent fuel. It is extremely flammable in pure Oxygen, but relatively inert in normal air. A combustion chamber mixing Boron and Oxygen could power many things cleanly, including cars. I don’t know the accuracy of the claim, but the guest recently wrote a book on it and says the current administration is interested. FWIW.
Materials scienceis cool. What do you do all day? Play with cool new stuff that you made in a lab and do destructive testing on it, that’s what. It’s like being a kid, tearing stuff up in the garage, and getting paid to do it.
If I had enough ambition, I’d get a master’s degree in it.