First there was aerogel. Developed in 1931, "frozen smoke" held the title for   
   world's lightest material for more than eighty years. And at 96 percent air,   
   its easy to see why.   
      
   Last year aerographite jumped into the number one spot. At six times lighter   
   than air, one cubic centimeter of the stuff weighs just 0.2 milligram.   
   Aerographite was heralded with much fanfare when its discovery was first   
   documented, but its reign was to    
   be a short one.   
      
   This month, a team of scientists at China's Zhejiang University went after —   
   and broke — the lightness record set by aerographite. Their discovery is a   
   spongy substance made from freeze-dried carbon. They've dubbed it graphene   
   aerogel, and it weighs in    
   at a tiny 0.16 milligram per cubic centimeter. That's only twice as dense as   
   hydrogen.   
      
   While the lightest material ever thing is what put graphene aerogel in the   
   news, it's the spongy nature of the stuff that has the team from Zhejiang   
   University most excited. They're imagining any number of uses for their   
   creation, but chief among them    
   oil spill cleanup. Not only would the graphene aerogel absorb an astounding   
   900 times its own weight in oil and water, but the absorbed oil, water, and   
   the graphene aerogel itself would be able to be reused after the cleanup   
   effort. The team is currently    
   hard at work developing other wonderful uses for the substance which revolve   
   around this absorbency and elasticity.   
      
   http://www.dvice.com/2013-3-28/world-has-new-lightest-material-graphene-aerogel   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)