Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley, 62, Dies

"Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley, a Rice University professor who helped discover buckyballs, the soccer ball-shaped form of carbon, and championed the field of nanotechnology, has died at the age of 62.
Smalley, who had battled cancer, died Friday at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Rice University said.

'We will miss Rick's brilliance, commitment, energy, enthusiasm and humanity,' Rice President David Leebron said.

He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry with fellow Rice chemist Robert Curl and British chemist Sir Harold Kroto for the discovery of the new form of carbon, which they dubbed buckminsterfullerene - buckyballs for short - because of its resemblance to the geodesic domes designed by Buckminster Fuller."

See my link at left to 'Everything I Know' and Buckminster Fuller. Also, 'Heroes Still', listed under the Essays section, also on the left.