Saturday, November 8, 2008

I think I've used this excuse before.

"No, really, Officer. I was doing research in the lab with my assistant. We were making diamonds with tequila. Hic." "Tell it to the Judge, Sir."

From SlashDot:
Researchers, oddly enough from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, have found a way to make diamond films using tequila. They were originally testing methods of creating the films with organic solutions like acetone when it was noticed the ideal ratios of water and ethanol turned out to be about 80 proof, or 40% alcohol. "To dissipate any doubts, one morning on the way to the lab I bought a pocket-size bottle of cheap white tequila and we did some tests," Apátiga said. "We were in doubt over whether the great amount of chemicals present in tequila, other than water and ethanol, would contaminate or obstruct the process, it turned out to be not so. The results were amazing, same as with the ethanol and water compound, we obtained almost spherical shaped diamonds of nanometric size. There is no doubt; tequila has the exact proportion of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms necessary to form diamonds."

I love science. I just need to figure out how to tell my principal that this is a great example of critical thinking and that we should replicate the experiment. You know, peer review ...

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