Girl Scouts Discover Wonder Material inside Their Cookies

Courtesy: Rice University

This story is featured in the January 2012 Issue of the Earth Preservers Newsletter. Download it here.

The Girl Scout in the picture looks amazed, and you would be too if you had just watched a Girl Scout cookie get heated to the point where it turned into a material called graphene.

The point of the experiment, which was done at Rice University in Texas, was to show the scouts how anything that contains carbon – even Girl Scout cookies – can be turned into graphene.

Keep in mind that too much carbon dioxide gas harms the environment, so keeping carbon out of the air by turning it into graphene is useful.

What’s grapheme? It’s a thin, transparent, very flexible material that is great at conducting electricity. Scientists say graphene will soon be used on touchscreen devices like smartphones, improving how they respond to your fingertip commands.

Scientists also think that, because graphene is so thin and flexible, it will one day be sewn into the clothing you wear. When that day comes, your clothing will act as “wearable computers.” You may be able to make a phone call – or look at tonight’s homework assignments – just by touching your shirt sleeve.