Various studies have shown that coffee prevents cancer, causes cancer, makes you live longer, makes you die younger and reduces your risk of diabetes.
You Can Make Diamonds Out Of Tequila!
Tequila may be just another drink to those out in the town, but to a team of scientists in Mexico their country’s native alcohol turned out to be a gem; a diamond, to be precise. Javier Morales, Luis Apátiga and Victor Castaño at the National Autonomous University of Mexico made the alchemist-worthy discovery while experimenting turning various organic solutions, such as acetone and ethanol, into diamonds. The scientists noted that 80-proof tequila (40 percent alcohol) had the ideal proportion of ethanol to water to create diamond films. In order to make the diamonds, they evaporated the tequila into a vapor, and then heated the vapor above 1400 degrees Fahrenheit before depositing it on silicon or stainless steel trays. The resulting diamond films were between 100 to 400 nm in diameter and free of impurities.
Hard and heat resistant, the diamond films could have several commercial applications, such as for cutting tools and optical electronic devices. At the moment, the team is looking into creating diamonds with impurities for potential use as a new kind of semiconductor. The scientists have bigger plans in sight, too: They intend to turn their work into an industrial-scale venture by 2011 and hope to find a tequila distiller to provide them with the supplies.
[via PopSci]
In the aftermath of WW2, over 1500 scientists, technicians, and engineers from Nazi…
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This year, the U.S. government will allocate over 600 billion dollars to the Department…
This year, the U.S. government will allocate over 600 billion dollars to the Department of Defense. In contrast, NASA will receive just over 17 billion dollars in funding.
Scientists in Mexico turned tequila into diamonds by heating a cheap…
Scientists in Mexico turned tequila into diamonds by heating a cheap shot to 800 degrees Celsius. At that temp, it vaporized and broke down into its atomic constituents, producing a fine layer of carbon crystal structures identical to diamonds on nearby metal trays.
Researchers who measured the slipperiness of banana peels, the ability…
Researchers who measured the slipperiness of banana peels, the ability of pork strips to stop nosebleeds, and the reactions of reindeer to humans in polar bear suits were among the winners of 2014 Ig Nobel prizes.
Tallest Man Ever – Robert Wadlow
For reasons that are probably best left to be explained by psychiatrists and psychologists, we humans seem to have a real fascination with things that set records – and it doesn’t seem to matter what kind! Most everyone is familiar with the Guinness Book of World Records which is all about the biggest, the smallest, […]
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J.J. Thomson won the Nobel in Physics (1906) when he showed….
J.J. Thomson won the Nobel in Physics (1906) when he showed electrons were particles. His son won it in 1937 for showing that electrons are waves. And they were both right.
11 Facts About Blue Eyes
What does eye color say about us as people? There are some pretty crazy ideas out there that probably have no basis in fact, such as the notion that people with blue eyes tend to be more romantic, vulnerable, sensitive, easily offended, and take everything too seriously. There’s another belief that blue-eyed people can be […]
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The discoverer of a gene for Green Fluorescent Protein lost his grant…
The discoverer of a gene for Green Fluorescent Protein lost his grant, didn’t get tenure, left academe and was working at a car dealership in Huntsville, Alabama, when he learned that former colleagues had won the Nobel Prize using the gene he sequenced.