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Nanodiamonds Are Not Forever
An anonymous reader writes "Livermore Labs and the Belgian Institute of Astrophysics (Catholic University, Leuven) are reporting today that nanodiamonds trapped by U2 spyplanes are pretty common (one part per 1000 in meteors), but don't originate from violent supernovae as previously thought. Instead their absence in comets suggest they formed after our solar system (are not pre-solar) by chemical vapor deposition -- and from much less violent asteroid collisions. Their technique of spectroscopy is compared to looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack by burning down the haystack.
It seems these diamond time capsules are close to perfect tracers for guessing the initial conditions when life first formed in the universe. On April 23-24, a large flux of identifiable comet dust will streak through our stratosphere from the Grigg-Skjellerup earth-crossing dust trail."
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, the stratosphere will streak through a lorge flux of Comet Dust from the Grig Skejellerup earth-crossing dust trail on YOU!
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Think of all the innocent comet dust particles that were harmed just to make one nanodiamond. Do the world a favor, get a nanozirconium instead.
why doesnt this article show up on the front page for me? sorry if its a n00b question :(
That's why this is the front page for people who don't want edited content.
Work on non-default comment reason-modifiers while you're at it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
i may just be dumb, but how does a U2 spyplane "trap" these nanodiamonds that are 3 nanometers across...?
On a diamond-related note:
As this article in The Atlantic ("Have you ever tried to sell a diamond?") points out - diamonds are only perceived to be worth anything because of the diamond cartel.
In the marketing coup of the century they've managed to convince the world that diamonds are rare and precious - both of which are completely untrue. Think about that the next time you hear "diamonds are forever" - it's advertising propaganda that people have been brainwashed into believing is true.
They should check to make sure its not nano-moissanite..
Meet new people, and kill them.
... is what you get if you remove the syllable na from the headline.
He saw some dirty arabs and fired. Too bad it was just some friendly kurds, BBC reporters and his fellow cowboys.
The conclusions in this article make a lot of sense actually- the conditions in the solar system are in many ways similar to a chemical vapor deposition setup- very low pressure, almost no oxygen, and yet still plenty of material to use as both a vapor (carbon) and substrate (asteroids, comets, dust motes, etc.). I'd expect that these nanodiamonds are simply the result of carbon atoms coming together and clustering on a surface, with the carbon of course in conditions suitable for diamond formation. I would expect that nanoscale clusters of the other carbon allotropes, graphite and fullerenes, should be found in abundance in the asteroid belt as well.
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
Finally, I get to see a very harrassed looking, young doc. I start to describe what I am feeling. But he says, "hold on, hold on, hold on, let me write this all down." I can see him patting all his pockets.
Then he pulls out a rectal thermometer, looks at it, looks cross, and says: " That's just great -- now some asshole has my pen! "
Sapphires and rubies got clobbered in the 1970s, when processes for making them were discovered. Linde Chemical introduced the "Linde Star", a perfect star sapphire, and manufactured them in volume, which killed the gem market. Today, you can buy sapphire and ruby bar stock, and it's not expensive. You can buy a 9" long x 0.125 diam. ruby rod on Ebay for $28.88 Sapphire, because it's used for semiconductors, is produced in high volume as large-diameter bar stock. When you see something like this:
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We can currently supply sapphire ingots, blanks, windows and wafers up to 200 mm in diameter, bar stock up to 100 mm square and ribbons up to 80 mm wide. All sapphire products are available in stages ranging from raw through polished for epitaxial growth. With six grades of synthetic sapphire, Maintech is sure to meet needs of the customers. Processors and end users now have an opportunity to take advantage of extraordinary prices from Maintech, Inc. Normal turnaround time is FOUR WEEKS!
you know that it's not a valuable, rare gem any more. It's more like Napoleon's rare, expensive set of aluminum dinnerware in the 1700s.It looks like something similar is starting to happen to diamonds. Don't put your money in them.
Given enough time (heat will speed things up), the crystal structure in diamonds reverts to plain old graphite.
o nd /diamond.htm
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/diam