crystallography
-
Hey Nerds: It’s Time for the Annual Mineral Cup
Each September brings the annual Mineral Cup, a fierce competition to determine Twitter’s favourite mineral. This year’s contest is well underway, with kaolinite narrowly beating schorl in the first matchup.
-
Researchers Find ‘Forbidden’ Quasicrystal in Wake of Nuclear Bomb Test
It’s reasonable to think of nuclear bombs in terms of their destructive capabilities; splitting the atom means obliteration for anything in the blast radius. But, as a team of geologists and physicists recently figured out, it also means creation: specifically, the transfiguration of ordinary crystalline structures into previously unimaginable geometries.