A RAGING lion of the chemical world has been tamed. Japanese chemists have made the first moderately stable “triplet carbene”, a type of free radical that’s normally extremely reactive and short-lived. The carbene lives for nearly half an hour and could pave the way to new carbon-based, organic magnets.
Carbon usually forms four covalent bonds with other atoms by sharing four of its electrons with them. Many reactions involve breaking one or more of these bonds, leaving an “angry” intermediate molecule with unpaired electrons. This normally reacts instantly to form a new compound.
In 1900, the chemist Moses Gomberg produced…
