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zombiewhacker
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
1475 Posts |
 Posted - 04/27/2007 : 12:18:47 PM
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[url]http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/bizarre/4743664.html[/url]
LONDON — A mineral recently discovered in Serbia has the same composition as kryptonite — the fictional substance that robs Superman of his powers — the British Museum said today.
While the material is not a perfect match, its chemical breakdown is strikingly similar.
A drill core of the unusual mineral was unearthed in Serbia by the mining group Rio Tinto PLC, which turned it over to mineral expert Chris Stanley at the Natural History Museum for analysis.
"Towards the end of my research I searched the Web using the mineral's chemical formula, sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide, and was amazed to discover that same scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luthor from a museum in the film Superman Returns," Stanley said.
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CDiehl
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
361 Posts |
Posted - 04/27/2007 : 12:41:42 PM
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I assume that the writer of Superman Returns was doing some research about rocks to find a formula to put on Kryptonite, and picked this one. It's probably not a coincidence, just that this kind of rock existed but wasn't well-known until this happened and got into the media.
You know Grand Funk, don't you? The wild, shirtless lyrics of Mark Farner? The bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher? The ... adequate drumwork of Don Brewer? |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 04/27/2007 : 6:35:38 PM
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"The same composition as kryptonite"? What the hell is that, it's green, radioactive and glows? This has got to be a gag.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Offramp
Altar Boy of Jabootu
8 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2007 : 04:42:37 AM
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The article continues:
"The material is white, powdery and not radioactive — unlike the glowing green crystals usually depicted in the Superman comics. It will be formally named Jadarite when it is described in the European Journal of Mineralogy later this year."
So we have a mineral which is not green, not radioactive and which is not called kryptonite, and which has none of the properties of ktyptonite ... and yet it makes headlines the world over as "Superman's Krptonite Discovered!"
I don't quite understand that. |
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Neville
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
Spain
1590 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2007 : 05:27:39 AM
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| I do. It's hell of an advertising for that people. |
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Altair IV
Preeminent Apostolic Prelate of the Discipleship of Jabootu
Japan
110 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2007 : 05:30:05 AM
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The funny thing is, the label on the case in Superman Returns was obviously not describing kryptonite. I'm pretty sure it was supposed to show how the real kryptonite got misidentified as something more mundane, perhaps by only testing a sample of an outer crust layer or something. The actual kryptonite was probably deeper inside the rock and of a different chemical/elemental nature entirely.
I'll bet you anything that the writers of the movie simply made up a reasonable-sounding mineral combination that they could put on their display, perhaps asking a geologist or chemist to help them out.
So this guy in Serbia did not find "kryptonite". He found the stuff that it was mistaken for.
BTW: you can read about what actually composes most meteorites [url="http://www.amonline.net.au/geoscience/meteors/types.htm"]here[/url]. And here's the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptonite"]Wikipedia page on kryptonite[/url], which mentions both what I just said and the Serbian find. |
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