When you mess about with carbon on a nanometre scale you can make all kinds of weirdness happen. You can make nanotubes that are 132 million times longer than they are wide, for example. This January some scientists in America made a mesh out of sheets of graphene (a one-atom thick sheet of pencil lead) and it’s the strongest, lightest material in the universe, as far as we know. https://futurism.com/mit-unveils-new-material-thats-strongest-and-lightest-on-earth/
The strongest natural material is a weird one – it’s limpet teeth! You know those flattish-looking shells you find near the sea, hanging on for dear life to the rocks? They’ve got teeth about a millimetre long, and they’re the strongest natural things we’ve found yet 🙂
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