Lightning and volcanos both produce glass, and humans have been making glass from silicon dioxide since prehistory. Industrialization brought us boron-based glasses, polymer glasses and metallic ...

Chemists have synthesized extremely unusual compounds. Their central building block is a silicon atom. Different from usual, however, is the arrangement of the four bonding partners of the atom, which ...

Select an option below to continue reading this premium story. Already a Honolulu Star-Advertiser subscriber? Log in now to continue reading. The special relationship that silicon shares with oxygen ...