From Orlando, Fla., at a meeting of the American Chemical Society
In a surprising discovery, chemists have created a molecule that many researchers thought was too unstable to exist long enough to be identified or studied. The positively charged ion, called the pentamethylcyclopentadienyl cation, lasts for weeks at room temperature and is so stable that it can sit in open air on a laboratory bench top without decomposing, report Lijun Lin of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and her colleagues.