Word: carbonized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Carbon is a kind of natural backbone: the all-important element that anchors the molecules of everything from crude oil to DNA. For the past six years, groups of scientists have been chasing down an exotic form of carbon believed to have a particularly elegant configuration: 60 atoms of carbon arranged like a miniature soccer ball. The improbably spherical molecules were dubbed buckminsterfulleren es, or simply buckyballs, because they resemble the geodesic domes designed by inventor Buckminster Fuller. Researchers knew that some sort of 60-atom carbon molecule existed, but they had trouble producing enough of the stuff to study...
...scientists, the discovery of buckyballs has been like stumbling across % an unexpected cache of buried treasure. Only two other distinctive forms of pure carbon have ever been found: ordinary graphite and precious diamonds. The atom clusters in graphite are flattened into hexagons, like tiles on a bathroom floor, while the atoms in diamonds form tiny pyramids. The molecular structure of buckyballs is so radically different that researchers hope this third form of carbon will lead to a whole new class of materials with a multitude of uses...
...first known encounter with a buckyball was recorded in 1985 by Richard Smalley, a chemical physicist at Rice University, and Harold Kroto, a British chemist from the University of Sussex who was visiting Smalley's lab. The two scientists were studying what would happen if they heated carbon vapor to about 8,000 degreesC (14,500 degrees F). Unexpectedly, they detected a mysterious new form of carbon. Chemical tests proved two things: 1) the molecules had 60 carbon atoms, and 2) they had no "edges," as chemists call the unpaired electrons that cause atoms to form chemical bonds with...
...Academy of Sciences called this month for the swift development of a new generation of nuclear plants to help fight the greenhouse effect. The new atomic plants already on the drawing board (see box) would replace power stations that burn coal and oil, fossil fuels that belch heat-trapping carbon dioxide -- the primary greenhouse gas -- into the atmosphere...
Last week a panel of the National Academy of Sciences issued a long-awaited report on global warming -- the theory that a buildup of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing temperatures to climb, threatening crops and coastal areas that could be drowned under rising oceans if the polar ice caps melt. Though both sides could find some support for their positions in the study, its findings and recommendations could prod the go-slow faction in the White House...