Why carbon might rule over the 21st century, too

The versatility of carbon, explained in this video:



I wish we had such videos when I was in high school; I would have become even more of a nerd then :)

In my classes now, I routinely bug students about various aspects of carbon.  Often I tell them that perhaps my fascination with it is because I grew up in a town where the entire economy was built around carbon from under the ground--lignite mining.  The lignite then used for power generation.

Anyway, back to carbon in the 21st century.  There has been a lot of talk about carbon nanotubes and graphene.  But, so far it has been only that--a lot of talk.  A little while back, in the context of the Nobel Prize for the graphene scientists, Wired explained some of the potentially transformative applications.

But, I am not sure how many students find any of my stories interesting enough ... oh well, even if neither carbon nor I are a student's best friends, an allotrope of carbon is a best friend to at least one half of the population, right?