Second Generation Science Buff

The following is not original and is taken from freely available science. There are two molecules that life depends on, the first is water, the second is carbon dioxide.

Each of these have special features, first water can dissolve anything, gas, solid or mineral. Carbon dioxide is dissolved in moisture in our lungs and is exhaled as carbonic acid. This is a natural nutrient although slowly damaging to most things in a house.

Carbon from hydro-carbons burnt to produce heat gives us a gas, carbon di-oxide; invisible in air, unlike water vapour, which becomes visible clouds. A small amount of CO2, carbon di-oxide, is natural and needed, a large amount causes a "green house effect", that is it holds heat into the lower atmosphere the so called TROPOSPHERE.

Also because water and carbon di-oxide can be lifted high into the upper atmosphere we get an unfortunate linkage.

Carbon di-oxide in nature is either a gas or a solid, a solid which if dispersed as a cloud of tiny crystals, becomes a rain trigger.

So, more dry ice, heavier, more violent rain, stronger thunder storms and rain fronts which dump and dissipate quicker. The Arctic and Antarctic sea waters dissolve the highest concentrations of carbon di-oxide. This more dense water sinks to the sea floor and is gradually brought back to the Tropics. The tropical heat releases the carbon di-oxide into the air, which can then be lifted up into the stratosphere to become Co2 crystals and trigger more violent weather.

Science student female

There is a branch of chemistry called organic chemistry; it is the study of the combinations the carbon atom makes with other atoms and molecules. A theoretical carbon linkage called a soccer ball, postulated in 1966 was proven to be a fact in October 1991, in the magazine the "Scientific American", this was done by two German physicists.

Once the technique was published it was copied all over the world, carbon was mostly C60 but also combining up to a colossal nine hundred atoms in some experiments.

The incredible thing of this reaction was the temperature that C60 was being formed, a candle flame was sufficient to create C60.

Therefore, this carbon molecule, being only carbon, is being generated in small fires and must be part of nature.

This is more than the so called elephant in the room, it is more like the ghost in the picture.

Granted carbon di-oxide is a green house gas, but a hot day with a thunder storm recreates the lung temperature to absorb carbon di-oxide into moisture, whether clouds or rain. A thunder storm and the lightning gives nitrogen oxides, with unknown linkages of carbon and nitrogen, but certainly carbonic acid.

The percentage of carbon di-oxide washed back to the ground as carbonic acid and the amount raised high enough to be dry ice crystals and a rain trigger is, to my knowledge an unknown and no amount of talk, can determine that percentage.

Science Teacher

The simplification of the carbon linkages to just carbon and oxygen does no one any help. The different temperatures of carbon di-oxide into sea water and out of our lungs seems straight forward. Cold water absorbs, warm lung temperature expels, as blood plasma is nearly sea water.

The carbonic acid exhaled from humans is mildly damaging to furnishing, but is also a soil nutrient. The combination of carbon di-oxide and water vapour in the sky, if it has been measured, it is not public knowledge.

The "bucky balls" found by Ultra-violet spectroscopy and since manufactured in laboratories, is also not known to the public. The October 1991 "Scientific American" article showed the possibility of these carbon spheres having single atoms in the centre of the "bucky balls", so called doping, with exotic effects.

These effects included room temperature supper- conductivity, electricity transmission lines with no heating, there-fore no wastage. If there have been break throughs in this scientific endeavor of "doping" it has not come to my attention as an interested observer.

The effect of bucky balls in nature is a worry, if they are not absorbed by, say trees, are they toxic to us, and is anybody looking out for this?

Concerned Adult

I have been following the letters to the editor, which have been dealing with carbon di-oxide, bucky balls or fullerene and their place in nature.

The name "fullerene" or "bucky balls" derives from Buckminster Fuller, an architect who designed the hemispherical buildings using hexagon frames which linked together, become self-supporting.

Self-supporting means there are no posts, towers or framed to hold this roof skin up, just the hexagon frames.

These are so strong that when anchored to the ground properly, they can withstand two hundred kilometer winds and not be damaged at all.

Their most visible use is as covers for radar installations, of course using non¬metallic material.

My interest in the discourses, is the part the bucky balls play in biology or if you like nature. The equipment for ultra-violet spectroscopy being more readily available means biologists can sample various parts of plants to determine where this particular carbon linkage shows up.

Spectroscopy "using visible light can give us most of the elements plants use and allow us to make sure commercial crops have proper nutrients for maximum growth and maximum nutrition.

To trace the bucky balls is a much harder task, all plants store carbon in their supporting structures, whether shrubs, flowers or trees.

Biologist

The last letter by the biologist is of interest, as our group has been attempting to isolate carbon sixty molecules from natural biological material.

We started using focused Ion beams, high energy metal particles aimed at minute samples of organic matter. We thought there would be enough Ultra-violet radiation to show a C60 trace.

Next we tried an Electron microscope and still did not prove the existence of Fullerine or bucky balls.

Our next attempt, we used the latest medical slicing technology, we sliced various parts of twigs, leaves, bark even a dried section of a Cambrian layer from a large tree. I have been following the letters to the editor with interest and would like to point out some thing that may be relevant on carbon.

My father described the lack of science news in his early life. A specialist magazine, if you knew of it, was the only possibility. The end of the second war brought science, particle physics, crashing into every- one's life.

Several decades on and particle physics is not news, though there are some great medical advances and possibilities on the collective horizon.

The second world war also brought a ban on science reporting. The "Manhattan Project" was top secret along with radar and submarine echo location.

The end of the war saw an increase of science reporting as never before.

The lack of reporting on the C60 carbon atom with the entrapment of various single different atoms inside is cause for thinking there may be a curtain drawn around any of this research.

The vague descriptions of the last letters makes me wonder if a new industrial revolution is not a possibility.

After all the 1991 "Scientific American" put forward some new chemical/physical exotic scenarios, including room temperature "super conductivity".

After twenty years, what is happening in secret laboratories that we know nothing of.