Graphene = Physics Magic

It seems to get better and better every day. Every other news report that comes out describes it as something that outlasts, outshines, and outruns every other material out there. But first.... what is it? 

Graphene is a 2-dimensional sheet of carbon molecules, packed close together in a hexagon pattern reminiscent of chicken-wire (something a surprising number of nanotech specialists are familiar with). It’s a fairly recent development in physics, not because scientists didn’t know single sheets existed, but because they didn’t know they could be isolated from the bigger 3D graphite. Theoretically, 2D crystals should not exist; the thinner a film of atoms gets, the lower its melting point (remember that temperature is simply the vibration of atoms. The faster the vibration, the more unstable our chicken wire can get). By the time you get to 2D, there should be an indefinite melting point. Hence, no graphene. 

But obviously, science messed up.

Have a heart...

For most of my life, I’ve had minor heart palpitations. They’ve never been very serious, at their worst making me mildly uncomfortable for a few seconds, but they've always thrown me a little off my guard. An irregular heartbeat is an uncomfortable thing to experience; that pumping rhythm is there one’s entire life, and the body doesn’t react well when the tempo switches up. 

But what if there was no tempo? Enter science. NPR recently covered a story about an artificial heart that doesn’t act like a heart at all… at least in the traditional sense. In the past, artificial hearts like the Jarvik 7 were designed to mimic the natural processes of the originals – mainly, the electrically-stimulated 'pumping' action – and act as a total replacement for the damaged organs. In most cases, though, damage wasn’t severe enough to cause a total shutdown, and so a total heart replacement would actually do more harm than good.

...in some cases.