Fun graphene fact: As the article mentions, graphene was first isolated at the University of Manchester using sticky tape. For this discovery, Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics... making Andre Geim the first person to be awarded both the Nobel Prize and the Ig Nobel Prize. He was previously awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for magnetically levitating a live frog.
So which accomplishment do you find more rewarding? While I see graphene becoming an extremely popular 21st century material, levitating a frog is the first step to levitating anything larger.
Thanks. Good point on the trains, completely missed that.
I guess levitating a live frog seems more interesting to me however. To be able to use magnetics to simulate gravity for humans safely, is IMO, a huge barrier (of many) to space travel/living one day.
My understanding is that they do use such magnets for microgravity experiments. Here is a cool video on diamagnetic levitation from the University of Nottingham: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nod54HFkH0o
