Oily alchemy: Turning soybeans into graphene

[rcjordan]

Welp, the mega-wealthy mega-farmers around here now stand to get mega-wealthier if this pans out. Soybeans, soybeans everywhere.

http://newatlas.com/graphene-csiro-soy-beans/47649/

[grnidone]

Hmmm.  Or canola farmers.  Or oil sunflower farmers. 

Dad is looking into farming some canola in the next year.  It's a new crop in this part of the US, but farmed heavily in the Dakotas and Canada.  Since the sugar cane aphid evolved into eating Grain Sorghum, there are a lot of farmers around here that are looking into alternative crops.

[buckworks]

>> farmed heavily in the Dakotas and Canada

Fun fact: When my husband was in university studying plant science he worked for more than one summer with one of the world's top canola breeders. He spent hours and hours with a microscope and a pair of tweezers to pick out seeds with certain characteristics. They were looking for seeds with a lower content of erucic acid.

[rcjordan]

Fun fact:  My small town ...nevermind... read this.

http://www.dailyadvance.com/Lifestyles-Columnists/2017/01/29/Early-soybean-harvest-manufacturers-quickly-found-buyers.html

Some books say Gordon's was the first soybean harvester invented.