By David Ponce

Update 2: Sorry guys, the promo code is “ohgiz” and not the one at the bottom of this article. 20% off!

We wrote about BuckyBalls a few days ago and the company got in touch, offering some sets as giveaways. If you don’t know, BuckyBalls are 216 tiny magnet balls that can be re-arranged in any number of ways. I’ve got mine on my desk right now, and they’re awesome!

We’ve got three up for grabs, and all you got to do is leave a comment on this post.

Yeah… entering is that simple. Winning is different, since we’ll choose winners not at random, but at our discretion. And by “our”, I mean my dictatorial opinion. It might be the most entertaining comments, or the most compelling, or the most creative… I’ll decide. In other words, earn your BuyckyBalls guys; it just takes a little comment.

Oh yeah, and enter once. Be nice. We’ll be checking.

Update: Oh yeah, guys, I almost forgot. If you don’t win, you can still be a winner by entering promo code “ohgizmo” and get 20% off your own set of BuckyBalls!

[ BuckyBalls ]

Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University have revealed in the journal Nature Chemistry that they’ve created a “magnetic superatom”, or “a stable cluster of atoms that can mimic different elements of the periodic table”. The poor Periodic Table of the Elements barely gets any respect as it is from the kids today (quick: do you know your Noble Gases, or the atomic weight of Nobilium?), now it has to compete with fancypants super atoms!

This new superatom is made of one vanadium and eight cesium atoms, and it “acts like a tiny magnet that can mimic a single manganese atom in magnetic strength while preferentially allowing electrons of specific spin orientation to flow through the surrounding shell of cesium atoms”. What good is this new superatom? According to Shiv N. Khanna, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Physics:

A combination such as the one we have created here can lead to significant developments in the area of “molecular electronics,” a field where researchers study electric currents through small molecules. These molecular devices are expected to help make non-volatile data storage, denser integrated devices, higher data processing and other benefits.

The researchers are also exploring non-conductive magnetic superatoms by combining gold and manganese.

Via Spintronics Info.