Fullerene Art

Rats fed on a diet of fullerene dissolved in olive oil, doubled their lifespan.

Here is a photograph of the City of London, viewed through a bottle of fullerene carbon 60 dissolved in olive oil.
The world's first fullerene art?

And this is what this purple liquid does to rats:

Poetry in Motion

In 2007, R. Brooks wrote a text message to D. Cameron, on the eve of his giving an important speech.

The message's language has cadence, rhythm, balance and uncomfortable imbalance in just the right places.

To my mind, it is a rather excellent piece of poetry. Dense, full of underlying nuance, prickly.

Here it is.

The only alterations I have made is ordering it into lines, and adding a colon at the end of the fifth line, and quote marks around 'Times'.

A Message to Cameron
by R. Brooks

But seriously
I do understand the issue with the 'Times'.

Let's discuss
Over country supper soon.

On the party:
It was because I had asked a number of NI people
To Manchester
Post endorsement
And they were disappointed not to see you.

But as always Sam was wonderful
(And I thought it was OE's were charm personfied!)

I am so rooting for you tomorrow
Not just as a proud friend
But because professionally
We're definitely in this together!

Speech of your life?
Yes he Cam!


Glossary:
N.I.  - News International, Brook's employer
O.E.  - Old Etonian, an elite public (private) school.
Sam - Cameron's wife

Fullerene in olive oil after 3 weeks

What reactions are taking place in the olive oil, to turn it from the usual yellow-green (olive?) colour, to this?

Here is a collection of papers that deal with aspects of fullerene triglyceride interactions, that may,or may not, throw some light on the reactions in olive oil:

http://144.206.159.178/FT/145/87403/14117365.pdf

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009308410000496

Fullerenes and Lifespan

A series of interesting studies have started to appear on fullerenes. Life Methyleen Blue, they may possibly act on the electron transport chain, and preferentially accumulate in mitochondria.

However, it is hard to extrapolate data from one fullerene study, and apply it to another - as these studies do not use pristine fullerene, but fullerene with adducts.

There are differences in toxicity and other effects of orders of magnitude with only minor alterations to the adducts.

It appears the fullerene forms a number of adducts as it reacts with olive oil. These appear to be beneficial to the organism - but what their metabolic action is remains unknown.


The first in vivo experiment to show an effect on lifespan is a 2007 study on mice:


This was followed up by a small toxicology study, which also showed lifespan extension effects, at very low dosages of oil-solution of fullerene.

Toxicity appears to be low.


Related Articles:
What happens to fullerene in an oil solution? http://144.206.159.178/ft/145/20269/365615.pdf


General research overview

Carbon Capture - A Leap and a Bound.

The percentage of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere is small, in absolute terms. Nevertheless, despite the low concentration of the gas in the atmosphere, some theorists have been talking about industrial scale atmospheric scrubbing, to engage in stripping Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere, in addition to carbon capture at points of concentrated emissions - i.e. in factories, cement works, and other places where Carbon Dioxide is emitted in highly concentrated form.

I have been of the view that it is only a matter of time until a super-efficient molecule that both adsorbs Carbon Dioxide, and releases it with minimal energy, will be discovered or synthesised. Chemists have formidable tools available now, to the point that molecules can be designed, and then constructed, with their properties in mind from the outset.

And so it is that this week, the first candidate molecule for this process has appeared - one that is
1. Cheap to manufacture
2. Efficiently strips 100% of the Carbon Dioxide from the air
3. Releases the adsorbed Carbon Dioxide in an energy efficient manner
4. Is re-usable for the next cycle of adsorption.

This is big news - I am surprised it isn't front page news. What in effect this means, is that this molecule, or an evolved descendant of its class, will be able to efficiently and cheaply remove Carbon Dioxide at the emission source, but, more importantly, will be able to strip Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere itself, simply by pumping air from the wider environment through containers holding the adsobent molecule.

Simply heating the containers to a low temperature of 85 Celsius - low enough to use industrial waste heat - released the Carbon Dioxide for collection. One could imagine Carbon Capture facilities built next to industrial units that generate waste heat, so that the heating process to release the adsorbed gas does not generate additional emissions.

If a price is set per tonne of Carbon Dioxide stripped from the atmosphere that is sufficient to cover the operational costs, then running such an atmospheric scrubbing plant to reduce global atmospheric Carbon Dioxide would be economically viable.