Scientists say that a thousand-year quest--one that you probably didn't even know about--has accidentally come to an end. Painters and fabric makers can rest easy because Mas Subramanian and his research team at Oregon State University have created a near-perfect blue pigment.
Blue pigments of the past have often been expensive (ultramarine blue was made from the gemstone lapis lazuli, ground up), poisonous (cobalt blue is a possible carcinogen and Prussian blue, another well-known pigment, can leach cyanide) or apt to fade (many of the organic ones fall apart when exposed to acid or heat) [The New York Times].
The new pigment popped up when the researchers were mixing manganese oxide, which is black, with other chemicals and then heating them up to high temperatures to study their electronic properties. One day, Subramanian was poking around in his lab when he noticed a graduate student removing a sample from the ...
