Though simple in appearance, the pencil is one of the most enduring and versatile writing tools in history. It has ...

However, researchers at MIT have discovered that both these contradictory properties live side by side in a rare form of ...

Today we have glasses made of plastic, tins made of aluminium, and golfing irons made of titanium. So it really shouldn't bother us that the "lead" in your pencil is made of graphite.

As such, the term "pencil lead" is a misnomer, as the core of a modern pencil is actually made from a mixture of graphite and clay. During manufacturing, a mixture with more graphite results in a ...

German miners from Keswick in the early sixteenth century had made more progress mining the graphite from this site," the university notes. Although commonly referred to as the lead pencil ...

Natosha Via That reputation began with James Raford Musgrave, who founded a pencil-wood ... quality deposit of graphite was found in England and quickly supplanted the lead used in earlier writing ...

But wouldn’t it be nice if the graphite tip of a pencil could be turned into diamond? After all, they are both composed entirely of carbon atoms. The main difference between pencil lead and the ...