There's a new buckyball on the scene!

In 1985, buckminsterfullerene (a spherical molecule formed of 60 carbon atoms) was discovered by a small team led by Kroto, Curl and Smalley, who later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Buckminsterfullerene belongs to a group of molecules called fullerenes which have shown potential as a hydrogen storage at high densities due to their closed, cage-like structures. Much research has since gone into this class of molecules, and now a cousin of the buckyball has come to light.

Boron is next to carbon in the periodic table and is well-known for it's cluster formation (boranes). Lai-Sheng Wang at the Brown University has successfully made a molecule, nicknamed "borospherene", with 40 boron atoms by vaporising a chunk or boron with a laser then freezing it with helium. Scientists are now hunting for further boron analogues of carbon structures such as graphene.