Molecules/Matter & Energy

Sticky graphene, dried-up coffee, a panda pregnancy test and more in this week's news

Graphene glue
Graphene, a sheet of carbon only one atom thick, is unusually sticky. The energy required to peel it from a surface is 10,000 times that of a typical micromechanical structure, a new study finds. Steven Koenig and colleagues at the University of Colorado Boulder calculated carbon’s ability to adhere by covering holes in a piece of silicon oxide with graphene patches, using gas to increase the pressure inside the holes and measuring the shape of the patches blistering outward.