Thursday Thirteen

Superman beware!

Kryptonite is real!!!

1. OK I’m finally back after quite long time. Firstly I had too many obligations (I still have them) and secondly I was unable to login on my old blog, which is why i decided to move here; so this is officially first TT from my new home :)
2.Therefore I decided to write you something which you probably don’t know and it has everything with my corner of the world, Serbia.
Namely as you can see from the title this post will be about Kryptonite.

3.So what do you know about it? Every fan of Superman knows it’s the stone from the remains of Superman’s native planet of Krypton. According to movie and comic-book storylines, kryptonite is supposed to sap Superman’s powers whenever he is exposed to its large green crystals. 4.It was produced from the material of Krypton, when it was destroyed in an explosion.
And that was about fictional kryptonite. But have you ever thought could it be real???
Well the answer (believe it or not) is YES!

5. Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes. A new mineral matching its unique chemistry, but unlike its famous counterpart, the new mineral is white, powdery and not radioactive. And, rather than coming from outer space, the real kryptonite was found in Serbia ten days ago.

6.‘Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral’s chemical formula, sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide , and was amazed to discover that same scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns’ says Dr Stanley from Natural History Museum in London and adding 7. ‘The new mineral does not contain fluorine and is white rather than green, but in all other respects the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite. We will have to be careful with it – we wouldn’t want to deprive Earth of its most famous superhero!’

8.The mineral cannot be called kryptonite under international nomenclature rules because it has nothing to do with krypton – a real element in the Periodic Table that takes the form of a gas. 9.Instead, it will be formally named jadarite when it is described in the European Journal of Mineralogy later this year. 10. Jadar (correct pronunciation would be like Yadar) is the name of the place where the Serbian mine is located.

11. The mineral is relatively hard but is very small grained. Each individual crystal is less than five microns (millionths of a meter) across.

12.‘Being able to analyze all the properties of a mineral, both chemical and physical, brings us closer to confirming that it is indeed unique.’ says Yvon Le Page, an expert in the field of crystallography at the Canada’s National Research Council and adds, 13.‘Finding out that the chemical composition of a material is an exact match to an invented formula for the fictitious kryptonite, was the coincidence of a lifetime’

Don’t know what to say? It seems neither is Superman able to help us … we’re done… (or we are more super than Superman LOL!)