CPSC To Go Interstellar Against Space Buckyballs?
Over the last several years, we here at Abnormal Use have chronicled the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s storied fight to ban the spherical desktop magnets known as Buckyballs. While we often find the CPSC to take draconian measures, its persistent efforts to rid the globe of Buckyballs were way over-the-top. However, the CPSC may have to push its fight to new limits. As reported by Space.com, Buckyballs are allegedly stirring up some trouble in the Milky Way! For nearly 100 years, astronomers have been perplexed by absorption bands associated with the interstellar gas and dust of the Milky Way. Now, researchers have discovered the first unambiguous evidence through laboratory testing that the bands may be the fingerprints of Buckyballs. That’s right. Buckyballs!
To be fair, these space Buckyballs are not exactly the desktop magnets we have come to love. Rather, these Buckyballs are soccer ball-shaped carbon molecules otherwise known as fullerenes. They got their name after their resemblance to the geodesic domes created by architect Buckminster Fuller (see Disney’s Epcot). While technically we may be dealing with two different Buckyballs, we imagine the hearts of the CPSC officials’ skipped a beat when they learned Buckyballs of any type had surfaced in outer space. In any event, we fully expect the CPSC to cite the space Buckyballs for failing to warn that they may cause absorption bands in our galaxy.
Perhaps we read too much science fiction, but can you imagine the CPSC war room if Buckyball CEO Craig Zucker had managed to deposit large quantities of Buckyballs in space? The CPSC would certainly issue recalls from all sales of Buckyballs to extra-terrestrial life forms. Zucker would respond by mocking the CPSC’s efforts with some clever propaganda regarding alien tolerance for digesting magnets. Thereafter, the CPSC would fight back by ordering nuclear strikes on the Milky Way. Of course, we would write about each stop in the process.
Sounds about right.
