Tag Archives: buckyballs

Where do buckyballs come from?

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I’ve always wondered where buckyballs come from (as have scientists for the last 25 years) and now there’s an answer of sorts  (from the July 31, 2012 Florida State University news release Note: I have removed some links),

“We started with a paste of pre-existing fullerene molecules mixed with carbon and helium, shot it with a laser, and instead of destroying the fullerenes we were surprised to find they’d actually grown,” they wrote. The fullerenes were able to absorb and incorporate carbon from the surrounding gas.

By using fullenes  that contained heavy metal atoms in their centers, the scientists showed that the carbon cages remained closed throughout the process.

“If the cages grew by splitting open, we would have lost the metal atoms, but they always stayed locked inside,” Dunk [Paul Dunk, a doctoral student in chemistry and biochemistry at Florida State and lead author of the study published in Nature Communications] noted.

The researchers worked with a team of MagLab chemists using the lab’s 9.4-tesla Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer to analyze the dozens of molecular species produced when they shot the fullerene paste with the laser. The instrument works by separating molecules according to their masses, allowing the researchers to identify the types and numbers of atoms in each molecule. The process is used for applications as diverse as identifying oil spills, biomarkers and protein structures.

Dexter Johnson in his Aug. 6, 2012 posting on the Nanoclast blog on the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) provides some context and commentary (Note: I have removed a link),

When Richard Smalley, Robert Curl, James Heath, Sean O’Brien, and Harold Kroto prepared the first buckminsterfullerene (C60) (or buckyball), they kicked off the next 25 years of nanomaterial science.

Here’s an artist’s illustration of  what these scientists have achieved, fullerene cage growth,

An artist’s representation of fullerene cage growth via carbon absorption from surrounding hot gases. Some of the cages contain lanthanum metal atoms. (Image courtesy National Science Foundation) [downloaded from Florida State University website]

 As I noted earlier I’m not alone in my fascination (from the news release),

Many people know the buckyball, also known by scientists as buckminsterfullerene, carbon 60 or C60, from the covers of their school chemistry textbooks. Indeed, the molecule represents the iconic image of “chemistry.” But how these often highly symmetrical, beautiful molecules with  fascinating properties form in the first place has been a mystery for a quarter-century. Despite worldwide investigation since the 1985 discovery of C60, buckminsterfullerene and other, non-spherical C60 molecules — known collectively as fullerenes — have kept their secrets. How? They’re born under highly energetic conditions and grow ultra-fast, making them difficult to analyze.

“The difficulty with fullerene formation is that the process is literally over in a flash — it’s next to impossible to see how the magic trick of their growth was performed,” said Paul Dunk, a doctoral student in chemistry and biochemistry at Florida State and lead author of the work.

There’s more than just idle curiosity at work (from the news release),

The buckyball research results will be important for understanding fullerene formation in extraterrestrial environments. Recent reports by NASA showed that crystals of C60 are in orbit around distant suns. This suggests that fullerenes may be more common in the universe than previously thought.

“The results of our study will surely be extremely valuable in deciphering fullerene formation in extraterrestrial environments,” said Florida State’s Harry Kroto, a Nobel Prize winner for the discovery of C60 and co-author of the current study.

The results also provide fundamental insight into self-assembly of other technologically important carbon nanomaterials such as nanotubes and the new wunderkind of the carbon family, graphene.

H/T to Nanowerk’s July 31, 2012 news item titled, Decades-old mystery how buckyballs form has been solved. In addition to Florida State University, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (or MagLab), the CNRS  (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)Institute of Materials in France and Nagoya University in Japan were also involved in the research.

Buckyball legal suit: all about toys, rare earths, and magnets

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The July 27, 2012 news item by Gary Thomas on Azonano highlights a legal suit involving Maxfield & Obertontoys that happen to be called Buckyballs and Buckycubes. From the news item,

The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has filed a complaint against New York based Maxfield & Oberton Holdings LLC over their Buckyballs and Buckycube desk toys subsequent to a 3-1 Commission vote approving the filing of complaint.

The complaint seeks an order on the firm to prohibit sale of Buckyballs and Buckycubes, to inform the public about the defect and also refund the consumers in full for purchases made. …

Despite cooperative efforts by CPSC and Maxfield & Oberton to educate buyers that the products are meant for adults, reports of swallowing incidents and injuries kept coming in.

Before I go further, here’s what the toy looks like,

downloaded from Maxfield & Oberton’s http://www.getbuckyballs.com/ home page

The problem is that the small spherical magnets contain rare earths and are being swallowed by children and teenagers resulting in serious injury. I found more details about the situation in the July 25, 2012 news release issued by the CPSC (Note: I have removed some links) ,

In May 2010, CPSC and Maxfield & Oberton announced a cooperative recall of about 175,000 Buckyball high powered magnets sets, because they were labeled “Ages 13+” and did not meet the federal mandatory toy standard, F963-08. The standard requires that such powerful loose as received magnets not be sold for children younger than 14.

The Buckyballs and Buckycubes sets contain up to 216 powerful rare earth magnets.

…

In November 2011, CPSC and Maxfield & Oberton worked cooperatively to inform and educate consumers that Buckyballs were intended for adult use only, and although the risk scenarios differ by age group, the danger when multiple rare earth magnets are ingested is the same. However, even after the safety alert, ingestions and injuries continued to occur.

Here’s more about the number of injuries associated with the Maxfield & Oberton toys and more about how children and why teenagers accidentally swallow the magnets (from the CPSC news release),

Since 2009, CPSC staff has learned of more than two dozen ingestion incidents, with at least one dozen involving Buckyballs. Surgery was required in many of incidents. The Commission staff alleges in its complaint that it has concluded that despite the attempts to warn purchasers, warnings and education are ineffective and cannot prevent injuries and incidents with these rare earth magnets.

CPSC has received reports of toddlers finding loose magnets left within reach and placing them in their mouths. It can be extremely difficult for a parent to tell if any of the tiny magnets are missing from a set. In some of the reported incidents, toddlers have accessed loose magnets left on a refrigerator and other parts of the home.

Use of the product by tweens and teenagers to mimic piercings of the tongue, lip or cheek has resulted in incidents where the product is unintentionally inhaled and swallowed. These ingestion incidents occur when children receive it as a gift or gain access to the product in their homes or from friends.

When two or more magnets are swallowed, they can attract to one another through the stomach and intestinal walls, resulting in serious injuries, such as holes in the stomach and intestines, intestinal blockage, blood poisoning and possibly death. Medical professionals may not diagnose the need for immediate medical intervention in such cases, resulting in worsening of the injuries.

Here’s how the CPSC explains the reason for filing suit (from the CPSC news release),

The Commission staff filed the administrative complaint against Maxfield & Oberton after discussions with the company and its representatives failed to result in a voluntary recall plan that CPSC staff considered to be adequate. This type of legal action against a company is rare, as this is only the second administrative complaint filed by CPSC in the past 11 years.

Michelle Castillo’s July 26, 2012 news item for CBS News provides more background,

Currently marketed to adults, the CPSC reported that more than 2 million Buckyballs have been sold in the U.S., as well as 200,000 Buckycubes. Each container has anywhere from between 10 to 216 small magnets.

…

CPSC spokesperson Alex Filip told CBSNews.com that there were 22 cases of swallowing these magnets from 2009 to October 2011. One of the most high-profile cases was that of a 3-year-old from Portland, Ore., who swallowed 37 magnets. The girl needed surgery after the balls ripped three holes through her intestines.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP)said in a statement that they agreed with the CSPS complaint, adding that the minute size of the magnets made it hard for caregivers to see if one is missing. A survey of North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition members found that there have been more than 60 magnet ingestion cases over the last two years, which necessitated 26 surgeries and involved 23 bowel perforations. It wasn’t stated how many of these cases were related to Buckyball or Buckycube magnets. [emphasis mine]

According to the CPSC information, there were a dozen or more  incidents associated with the Buckyball/Buckycube magnets. I’m unclear as to how many incidents that is per year since 2009 – 2011 could be considered either two years (e.g. July 2009 – July 2011) or three years (Jan. – Dec. of 2009, 2010, and 2011). Regardless,  either four or six incidents per year in the US have been attributed to these Maxfield & Oberton toys (or, seven to eleven incidents based on the total number [22] of accidents involving the ingestion of these kinds of magnets).

Maxfield & Oberton’s response covers a number of points,

“We are deeply disappointed that the CPSC has decided to go after our firm – and magnets in general. Magnets have been around for centuries and are used for all sorts of purposes. Our products are marketed to those 14 and above and out of over half a billion magnets in the market place CPSC has received reports of less than two-dozen cases of misuse. We worked with the Commission in order to do an education video less than 9 months ago, so we are shocked they are taking this action. We find it unfair, unjust and un-American,” added Zucker [Craig Zucker, founder and Chief Executive Officer]. “We will vigorously fight this action taken by President Obama’s hand picked agency.”

Maxfield believes the CPSC is now taking the absurd position that warnings can never work. By doing so, CPSC has called into question the efficacy of all of the warnings the agency relies upon including its recently announced program to warn about the risk of strangulation posed by cords on baby monitors, cords that have been involved in 7 deaths.

What will CPSC do about drowning for which its remedy is warnings?

For balloons involved in several deaths each year, the Commission warns about the risk of suffocation from uninflated or broken balloons and says “Adult supervision required.” But for some reason when it comes to an American company that sells Buckyballs® exclusively to adults, the CPSC takes a different approach and decides that warnings don’t work. The Company believes the CPSC can’t have it both ways.

While this isn’t a nanotechnology story as such, despite what the toys are named, it  does illustrate issues around risk s, hazards, and regulations. What are the benefits? What risks are we prepared to tolerate? What are the hazards and how do we mitigate against them? How much regulation do we need? What are the impacts economically and socially?

Disease-fighting and anti-aging with nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) and Janelle Tam

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Originally from Singapore, 16-year old Janelle Tam of Waterloo, Ontario has won first place nationally in the 2012 Sanofi BioGENEius Challenge Canada (SBCC) competition with her application for nanocrystalline cellulose. From the May 8, 2012 news item on physorg.com,

Janelle Tam, a Grade 12 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, was awarded the $5,000 first prize by an impressed panel of eminent Canadian scientists assembled at the Ottawa headquarters of the National Research Council of Canada.

…

The theme of the competition, “How will you change the world?” inspired hundreds of students to participate in 2012 SBCC events Canada-wide.

…

Canada’s next big technological and health breakthrough might come from cellulose, the woody material found in trees that enables them to stand. Cellulose is made up of tiny nano-particles called nano-crystalline cellulose (NCC) that are measured in thousandths of the width of a human hair.

Only recently discovered, Waterloo’s Janelle Tam is the first to show that NCC is a powerful antioxidant, and may be superior to Vitamin C or E because it is more stable and its effectiveness won’t diminish as quickly.

“NCC is non-toxic, stable, soluble in water and renewable, since it comes from trees,” says Janelle, a Grade 12 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute.

…

“NCC is really a hot field of research in Canada,” says Janelle, who notes that antioxidants have anti-aging and health promotion properties, including wound healing since they neutralize “free radicals” that damage or kill cells.

Janelle chemically ‘paired’ NCC with a well-known nano-particle called a buckminster fullerene. These ‘buckyballs’ (carbon molecules that look like a soccer ball) are already used in cosmetic and anti-aging products she says. The new NCC-buckyball combination acted like a ‘nano-vacuum,’ sucking up free radicals and neutralizing them.

“The results were really exciting,” she says and especially since cellulose is already used as filler and stabilizer in many vitamin products. One day those products may be super-charged free radical neutralizers thanks to NCC, she hopes.

Jeff Hicks’ May 8, 2012 story for TheRecord.com about Tam and her NCC work offers some insight into the young scientist and the scientific process,

Janelle, 16, is admittedly stubborn.

Gets it from her dad Michael, a University of Waterloo chemical engineering professor.

…

… you’ve got to have gumption to spend three to four hours a day in a University of Waterloo lab from September to March to invent a disease-fighting, anti-aging compound.

…

A frustrating nano-globe almost kicked her into submission last December.

Three months into her work she realized she had messed up. Her experimental technique was flawed. Her results were as worthless as Leafs playoff tickets.

Janelle wanted to give up. She told her mom Dorothy, a literacy social worker, she was never returning to the lab. Her older sister and former Team Canada science partner Vivienne, could not be leaned on for advice. Vivienne, 19, had left for Princeton.

…

But Janelle’s dad settled her down.

“He’s one of the most perseverant people I know,” she said. “He tells me that research is about failing and failing and failing. And failures are all steps on the way to success.”

Tam will be in Boston, Massachusetts for June 18, 2012 to compete in Sanofi’s International BioGENEius Challenge, which takes place at the same time as Sanofi’s  BIO Annual International Convention. For anyone who’s curious about Sanofi, it’s a French multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Paris, France. I found the Wikipedia essay a little more informative than the Sanofi company website .

(For a mild change of pace) So, Sanofi is a large French company which sponsors this contest. Are Canadian companies sponsoring contests of this type? I ask the question because Canadian companies don’t invest in research and development at the same rate as companies in other countries and, it appears, do less to stimulate  interest and participation in science pursuits amongst youth. Developing an innovative society means having a much more comprehensive approach than publicity campaigns and retooling government funding programmes.

Getting back to Tam’s work, congratulations! This is very exciting stuff especially in light of some of the concerns expressed in Bertrand Marotte’s recent article on NCC for the Globe and Mail newspaper, mentioned in my May 8, 2012 posting.

MORPHONANO, an art/sci exhibit in California

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This description of the event (MORPHONANO) which is being held at the Beall Center at the University of California (Irvine) comes from the Beall Center’s home page,

MORPHONANO explores a number of art works created by media artist Victoria Vesna and nanoscientist James Gimzewski. Their collaborative works create an intersection of space, time and embodiment by employing a very subtle and responsive energetic exchange. Participants interact with the works in mindful ways resulting in rich visual and sonic experiences within a meditative space. By reversing the scale of nanotechnology to the realm of human experience, the artist and scientist create a sublime reversal of space-time.

Here’s an image depicting one of the exhibits in the show,

ZERO@WAVEFUNCTION plays with the idea of scale and molecular manipulation from a distance with the participant changing the structures of the buckyballs with their shadows, a real time interactive metaphor of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM).

It looks to me that the idea is to ’embody’ the nanoscale as per the caption “the participants changing the structures of the buckyballs with their shadows, a real time interactive metaphor of the scanning tunneling microscope.” There’s a larger version of the image and information about this exhibit in the Feb. 14, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,

BLUE MORPH is an interactive installation that uses nanoscale images combined with sounds derived from the microscopic undulations of a chrysalis during the period of its metamorphosis into a butterfly recorded using nanotechnology. The work is designed to be responsive to minute, subtle, mindful movements of the participant creating a rich visual and sonic experience of morphing. Most is revealed in complete stillness.

NANOMANDALA is a video projected onto a disk of sand, 8 feet in diameter. Visitors can touch the sand as images are projected in evolving scale from the molecular structure of a single grain of sand – achieved my means of photography, optical and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) – to the recognizable image of the complete mandala, and then back again. The original Chakrasamvara mandala was created by monks of the Ghaden Lhopa Khangsten monastery. Patience will allow experiencing the whole.

ZERO@WAVEFUNCTION plays with the idea of scale and molecular manipulation from a distance with the participant changing the structures of the buckyballs with their shadows, a real time interactive metaphor of the scanning tunneling microscope (STM). Slow motion makes change happen.

BRAIN STORMING: SOUNDS OF THINKING a premier of a work of self organization in progress focusing on scale invariant and the brain using biometric data. A number of brain storming sessions with cutting neuroscientists, nanotechnologists, philosophers and monks will take place throughout the exhibition. In many ways the works in this exhibition reverse the scale of nanotechnology to a visible realm and time in nano scale creating a sublime reversal of space-time.

The show opened Feb. 2 and closes May 6, 2012. The address is

Beall Center for Art + Technology
University of California, Irvine
Claire Trevor School of the Arts
712 Arts Plaza
Irvine, CA 92697-2775
www.beallcenter.uci.edu

Here are some details about the art/sci collaborators, Victoria Vesna and James Gimzewski, from the undated Beall Center news release,

Victoria Vesna is a media artist and Professor at the Department of Design | Media Arts at the UCLA School of the Arts and director of the UCLA Art|Sci center. Currently she is Visiting Professor at Art, Media + Technology, Parsons the New School for Design in New York and a senior researcher at IMéRA – Institut Méditerranéen de Recherches Avancées in Marseille, France. Her work can be defined as experimental creative research that resides between disciplines and technologies. She explores how communication technologies affect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation. Her most recent experiential installations — Blue Morph, Water Bowls, Hox Zodiac, all aim to raise consciousness around environmental issues natural and human-animal relations. …

James Gimzewski FRS is a distinguished Professor in the Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA. He is director of Pico and Nano core laboratory at the California NanoSynstems Institute (CNSI). He is also scientific director of the Art | Sci center and a senior fellow of IMéRA. He is a satellite co-director and PI of materials nanoarchitectonics at the National Institute of Material Science in Tsukuba, Japan. Until February 2001, he was a group leader at the IBM Zurich Labs, where he was involved in Nanoscale science since 1983. He pioneered research on electrical contact with single atoms and molecules, light emission and molecular imaging using STM. His accomplishments include the first STM-manipulation of molecules at room temperature, the realization of molecular abacus using buckyballs, the discovery of single molecule rotors and the development of nanomechanical sensors based on nanotechnology, which explore the ultimate limits of sensitivity and measurement. …

I have mentioned Gimzewski previously in a post (Oct. 17, 2011) about a three-part nanotechnology series on Canadian television.

Nanoscience public relations at Rice University

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There’s an opportunity to interact with Nobel prize winner in Chemistry Sir Harry Kroto via the Nobel Prize’s YouTube channel and its Facebook page. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Harry Kroto, awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1996, is the latest to take part in the “Ask a Nobel Laureate” series on YouTube and Facebook. “Ask a Nobel Laureate” gives online viewers worldwide the unique opportunity to put their questions directly to a Nobel Laureate and see the responses.

Harry Kroto received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 with Robert Curl and Richard Smalley for the discovery of C60, a remarkable molecule composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged in a soccer-ball-like pattern. The configuration reminded Kroto of the futuristic geodesic domes designed by Richard Buckminster Fuller, and consequently C60 was given the name “buckminsterfullerine”, otherwise known by its more popular name of “buckyballs”.

You have until Sept. 4, 2010 to submit your questions via the Nobel Prize YouTube channel (where you will find a 3 minute video introduction to Sir Harry Kroto) or the Nobel Prize FaceBook page.

Video or text questions will be accepted (though video questions are preferred), and you can visit the channels to see questions that have already been posted and vote for your favourite ones. The deadline for submitting questions is 4 September 2010. Harry Kroto will then answer a selection of questions, and his answers will be broadcast on [the Nobel Prize] YouTube channel.

You can find out more about Sir Harry Kroto’s Nobel Prize here.

This item caught my attention since I’ve been noticing an increase in the number of news items about Rice University and/or the folks associated with the discovery of buckyballs. For example, Nanowerk has another news item about Rice University’s new state-of-the-art nanotechnology overview course (Continuing Studies) being launched in concert with Rice’s Year of the Nano 25th anniversary celebration of the discovery of the buckyball. From the news item,

In conjunction with Rice’s Year of Nano celebration of the 25th anniversary of the buckminsterfullerene molecule discovery – the buckyball – the Glasscock School is offering a course to the public featuring lectures by Rice’s top nano scientists. The course will cover applications of nanotechnology and the underlying scientific principles that relate to medicine, electronics, materials and energy. Participants will explore the environmental, health and safety aspects of nanotechnology, how Rice is leading the way in understanding and assessing the risks and how applications are brought to market and create jobs.

First among the lecturers is one of the buckyball’s discoverers, Robert Curl, Rice’s University Professor Emeritus and Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences, who shared the Nobel Prize with the late Richard Smalley of Rice and Harold Kroto, then of the University of Sussex and now at Florida State University. [emphasis mine]

Curl will discuss the team’s work and subsequent impact of the buckyball, a 60-atom carbon molecule shaped like a soccer ball and one of the hardest substances in the universe. Wade Adams, director of Rice University’s Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, co-sponsor of the course, will join Curl for the presentation.

So the “Ask a Nobel Laureate” series focus on Sir Harry Kroto comes at an interesting time, non?

Really good public relations (pr) practice can be quite subtle and difficult if not impossible to detect unless you are in ‘the know’. So this Nobel YouTube/FaceBook interaction with Sir Harry K. may be happy coincidence or part of a pr campaign.

Stuart Ewen wrote a book titled, PR! A Social History of Spin, where he discusses a lengthy interview he had with Edward Bernays one of the pioneers in US public relations. Before I tell the story it’s best to know a little more about Bernays. From PR Watch.org (book review by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton),

Today, few people outside the public relations profession recognize the name of Edward L. Bernays. As the year 2000 approaches, however, his name deserves to figure on historians’ lists of the most influential figures of the 20th century.

It is impossible to fundamentally grasp the social, political, economic and cultural developments of the past 100 years without some understanding of Bernays and his professional heirs in the public relations industry. PR is a 20th century phenomenon, and Bernays–widely eulogized as the “father of public relations” at the time of his death in 1995–played a major role in defining the industry’s philosophy and methods.

Eddie Bernays himself desperately craved fame and a place in history. During his lifetime he worked and schemed to be remembered as the founder of his profession and sometimes drew ridicule from his industry colleagues for his incessant self-promotions. These schemes notwithstanding, Bernays richly deserves the title that Boston Globe reporter Larry Tye has given him in his engagingly written new book, The Father of Spin.

…

Bernays’ life was amazing in many ways. He had a role in many of the seminal intellectual and commercial events of this century. “The techniques he developed fast became staples of political campaigns and of image-making in general,” Tye notes. “That is why it is essential to understand Edward L. Bernays if we are to understand what Hill and Knowlton did in Iraq–not to mention how Richard Nixon was able to dig his way out of his post-Watergate depths and remake himself into an elder statesman worthy of a lavish state funeral, how Richard Morris repositioned President Bill Clinton as an ideological centrist in order to get him reelected, and how most other modern-day miracles of public relations are conceived and carried out.”

Ewen’s book published in 1996 likely features one of Bernays’ last interviews and fascinating insight into how pr can work. Partway through the interview Ewen asks Bernays for a practical example of how he practices pr and Bernays uses Ewen’s forthcoming book as the example. From the website where Dr. Ewen sells his book and offers chapter 1 as a reading sample,

If you said to me, ‘I would like more readers of this book’ [tapping the cover] …I would immediately get in touch with the largest American consumer association. And I would say to the head of the consumers association, ‘There are undoubtedly…I can’t tell you the exact percentage, but X percentage of your members who are very definitely interested in the images that come from a finance capitalist society, and who I think would enjoy hearing about that. Why don’t you devote one of your twelve meetings a year to consumer images, the name of a new book, and I think it may be possible for me to get the author to talk to the New York meeting and you then make an arrangement with American Tel and Tel and have a video tape made of him beforehand and in thirty of the largest cities of the United States that have the American Consumer League, you listen to an in-depth concept of consumers and images….’

Then Bernays turned to me and, with an abracadabra tone in his voice, he summarized the imaginable result of his hypothetical phone-call to the head of the country’s largest consumer association:

Every one of the consumer groups has contacts with the local paper, and in some cases the AP may pick it up, or Reuters, and you become an international star!

…

Then, about three months after the interview-the above incident having faded from my immediate memory-I received a most surprising telephone call. It was from Steven Brobeck, president of the Consumer Federation of America, one of the nation’s largest and most influential consumer organizations. Mr. Brobeck wanted to know if I would be willing to serve as a keynote speaker at the upcoming Consumer Congress in Washington, DC, a convention that would bring together more than a thousand members of consumer organizations from around the country. He wanted me to speak about American consumer culture and the ways that seductive commercial images are routinely employed to promote waste and disposability. C-Span, I was informed, would be taping my keynote, and would then cablecast it across the country.

I still do not know whether Bernays’ hand was behind this invitation, or whether the phone call was merely a result of sly coincidence. When I inquired as to the origin of the invitation, nowhere was there any clear-cut, or even circumstantial, evidence of Bernays’ intervention.

But then I recalled another point in our lengthy conversation, when Bernays sermonized on the invisibility with which public relations experts must, ideally, perform their handiwork. [emphasis mine]

Props to the folks at Rice if they are practicing some invisible pr.

I’ve written about Rice and their Year of the Nano before, May 13, 2010 and August 3, 2010.