By James H. Burns: I used to love when Superman would take a lump of coal in his hands, and via super-pressure or some such, change it into a diamond! I hope this new discovery, doesn’t render such Kal-elian alchemy, moot!
Space Daily reports scientists have discovered how to use a pulsing laser to create synthetic nanodiamond films and patterns from graphite
A doctoral student noticed that the laser was either causing the graphite to disappear or turn semi-transparent. “The black coating of graphite was gone, but where did it go?” Cheng said. Subsequent research proved the graphite had turned into diamond. The Purdue researchers have named the process confined pulse laser deposition (CPLD).
The discovery has potential applications from biosensors to computer chips.
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I had my own take on the whole Superman/diamonds thing a few years ago.
And your punchline is awfully funny.
I don’t mind that Superman could squeeze coal and reproduce the effects of millions of years of thousands of tons per square inch pressure and high temperatures in his fist. Why not? The guy cans stop .50 bullets with is eyeballs? What got me was that he could also reproduce the effects of a master diamond cutter, working for weeks with hardened tools, to create a *cut, faceted* diamond!