Concrete may have found it's killer app in graphene which could open up new uses and new markets. If graphene didn't take off, the technology would still be a success. ~~~ rwmj There was a BBC article today about a material called Buckyballs. Rather than laying graphene "layer upon layer", these are the carbon atoms _arranged_ in a similar shape to graphene, not _laying_ on top of each other like graphene. They're about 5 atoms thick and are currently quite expensive to make. Also they don't really have a use, just curiosity value. ~~~ matt-attack They're not exactly the same. They have similar characteristics, but it's not 100% clear that they're going to be as usable as graphene. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8286536.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8286536.stm) ------ tocomment Just got a "You can't add products to your cart at this time" error. Anyone else? ~~~ littletimmy I am getting it as well. ~~~ tocomment I figured it was some kind of karma / error. But it persists. ~~~ littletimmy I doubt they are being spammed so badly that a permanent error would be caused by some random action. Perhaps there is some technical problem? ~~~ tocomment So it has happened consistently for about an hour or two. So it must be a technical problem. I wonder what they could be fixing. ------ bengali3 i was a big fan of graphene when it was discovered, now that it has been discovered to be a less exciting material (no more miraculous uses for it) I'm disappointed in graphene as a wonder material. i hope there's enough of a market to push graphene research forward and find useful things to do with it. ~~~ zhemao It still has great potential in nanotechnology. A year ago I read a great article about it from Popular Science [1] that made me curious about the nanotechnology side of the field. [1] [http://www.popsci.com/article/science/graphene/page/2](http://www.popsci.com/article/science/graphene/page/2) ~~~ bengali3 thank you for this article, the page loaded quick. ------ al2o3cr This is interesting - here's the video from the Royal Society announcing the paper: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGc7FZ7PzF8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGc7FZ7PzF8) (not sure what the title is - it's not "Founding Father of Graphene Dies at 93"...) ~~~ waps I don't know if he was involved with graphene or not (and can't find the article about it online). In some places he refers to graphene as "graphitic crystals" which the article seems to use to describe the material's actual structure. Graphitic crystals are a common form of carbon-based fuel. ~~~ m3koval He wasn't, but he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with graphene: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geim,_Kostya](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geim,_Kostya) ------ srean It has been hard to know what to with graphene other than that it cannot be used for its primary purpose. Now that graphene's been a dud its time to find the next wonder material and hopefully that one will also turn out to be a dud and that too will become another great milestone in tech history. ------ tokenadult Weird to have "founding father of graphene dies at 93" as the HN headline, when the first post here today at Hacker News from the journal Nature[1] reports an obituary, not a discovery of a new material. [1] [http://www.nature.com/news/2013/130703/full/news.2013.746.ht...](http://www.nature.com/news/2013/130703/full/news.2013.746.html) ------ waster This is not a new material at all -- the article is about graphene as well as its applications. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphitic_crystal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphitic_crystal) and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene) ~~~ hackcasual Thanks for linking those, looks like they're being used extensively in the paper in question. ------ smoyer I had no idea graphene was used as a paper product. I was going to suggest it as a high-tech paper substitute but now that I know it's used in a very different market, it seems that maybe it shouldn't have a different name. ------ waps Great, now the internet is going to turn to carbon ? They've found a way to make graphene, which is great. But now let's talk about _how_ graphene manufacture was discovered, instead of the discovery itself ? Great continuation of this meme, everyone should stop and think about how science is a process, and not a destination. P.s. this is HN, this is why we can't have nice things ~~~ sp332 The first discovery is a "new material", graphene is just an example of the material. ~~~ waps You could say graphene is the first and greatest material of the new age of manufacturing ? ------ tocomment A news article with a picture of graphene? How did we get on HN? ------ hackcasual Interesting that the name 'graphene' was found by Professor S. Geim and Dr. Kostya Novoselov at Manchester University. ~~~ anonymfus "A year ago I read a great article about it from Popular Science" Great article is here: [http://www.popsci.com/article/science/graphene/page/2](http://www.popsci.com/article/science/graphene/page/2) ~~~ hackcasual I don't understand the point of this criticism. Do you think geim and novoselov would not have found graphene if not for the article? ~~~ anonymfus They are simply being sarcastic. I wanted to provide another source and I did it. Maybe it would be a good practice to mention such sources on similar topics in comments. ~~~ hackcasual I don't know what you mean by sarcastic. Yes, I agree if you mention another source in the comments you should do that.