August Chementator Briefs

  Graphene from dry ice Researchers at Northern Illinois University (NIU; DeKalb, Ill.; www.niu.edu) discovered a new method for producing graphene that involves burning pure magnesium metal in dry ice. The method, which is capable of producing large quantities of graphene in sheets less than ten atoms thick, is simpler than conventional methods for generating graphene, and avoids hazardous chemicals. The NIU scientists knew that burning Mg metal in carbon dioxide produced carbon, but the structure of the resulting carbon had not been studied carefully before, says NIU researcher Amartya Chakrabarti. Graphene, two-dimensional carbon arranged in hexagonal lattice, has been the focus of extensive research because of its electrical and mechanical properties. A new thermophile Scientists from the University of Calif., Berkeley (UCB; www.berkeley.edu) and the University of Maryland School of Medicine have discovered a microbe in a Nevada hot spring that metabolizes cellulose at a record-high temperature of 109°C. The hyperthermophillic microbe, dubbed EBI-244, is said to be only the second member of the Archaea group known to grow by digesting cellulose, and the organisms cellulase is the most heat-tolerant enzyme found in any…