Bucky Balls Could Double Your Lifespan

[Why Syzygy]

Bucky Balls Could Double Your Lifespan
http://gizmodo.com/5902703/

The experiments, which were carried out at the Université Paris Sud, France, set out to assess what adverse reactions might be caused by ingesting Bucky balls orally. To do that, they fed three groups of rats differently. Along with their normal diet, one group was held as a control; a second was fed olive oil; and a third group was fed olive oil doped with a 0.8 mg/ml concentration of Buckminster fullerene.

The results, which appear in Biomaterials, took the researchers by surprise. The control group had a median lifespan of 22 months, and the olive oil group one of 26 months. But the Bucky ball group? They stuck it out for 42 months. That's almost double the control group.

The researchers have established that the effect is mediated by a reduction in oxidative stress—an imbalance in living cells that contributes to ageing. To say these results are important is an understatement: the desire to live longer runs strong in many of us, and it's a feat scientists have been hoping to achieve for centuries.

Abstract
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961212003237

[Tunkamerica]

1. I looked up the price when this was originally posted a few weeks ago and it's fairly expensive

http://www.jkchemical.com/EN/products/A01371111.html = $86/500mg

http://www.tci-uk.co.uk/catalog/B1660.html = $265/ gram or

http://www.tci-uk.co.uk/catalog/B1641.html = $305/ gram for slightly more concentrated

http://www.alfa.com/en/gp100w.pgm?dsstk=39722 = $600/5 grams

http://www.alfa.com/en/gp100w.pgm?dsstk=42007 = $1200/5 grams of 99.9% pure

http://www.alfa.com/en/gp100w.pgm?dsstk=42008 = $1600/5 grams sublimed

Considering you might need 75 times the amount the rats needed...

[BootinUp]

2. I would be surprised if you couldn't get industrial grade quantities

for much less. Carbon nanotubes are not that expensive IIRC and they are related to bucky balls.

[Tunkamerica]

3. Oh yeah, totally. It also doesn't look that hard to do it yourself for

people who know about such things.

[JackInGreen]

5. Priced to sell

For the 1% would be Methuselah..

[Confusious]

4. I heard they were poisonous

Maybe that was some other carbon thing, like carbon nanotubes.

[Why Syzygy]

6. This study

This study was actually undertaken to prove they were toxic. Details at the Abstract.

[Scuba]

7. Oh sure, now.

[gkhouston]

8. I wonder what the guy who discovered bucky balls would think of this. n/t

[BadgerKid]

9. Probably not much these days

as he's dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Smalley). Over the years I've gotten the impression he and his group explored everything and anything having to do with fullerenes.

[Why Syzygy]

10. "the guy"?

Buckminster Fuller? The designer of the geodesic dome?

I think he would be pleased.
http://bfi.org/about-bucky

[MineralMan]

11. No. They were named after him. He had nothing to do with it.

The class of all these forms of carbon are called Fullerenes.

[Why Syzygy]

12. Seriously?

Nothing to back that up?

A spin-off of Fuller's dome-design conceptualization was the Buckminster Ball, which was the official FIFA approved design for footballs (association football), from their introduction at the 1970 World Cup until recently. The design was a truncated icosahedron – essentially a "Geodesic Sphere", consisting of 12 pentagonal and 20 hexagonal panels. This was used continuously for 34 years until replaced by the 14-panel Teamgeist for the 2006 World Cup.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminster_Fuller#Practical_achievements

I would call that "designed".

If you don't, why would anyone care? Is there a purpose to this particular contrariness?

[MineralMan]

13. Buckyballs, an novel configuration of carbon atoms were

named for Buckminster Fuller because they appeared somewhat like the geodesic domes he designed. At the time he designed those domes, bucky balls were not known to crystallographers and physicists.

He had nothing to do with those forms of carbon. However, bucky balls were named for him, as were other related fullerenes. Buckminster Fuller had nothing to do with their discovery, but they were named in his honor. Nobody "designed" fullerenes or buckyballs. They were discovered.

You can look up buckyballs or fullerenes on Wikipedia. Buckminster Fuller was an amazing, inventive man, but he had nothing to do with fullerenes or buckyballs.

[Why Syzygy]

14. You may be right.

I'm not myself today.