It's Monday, August 13th, 2018, and you're listening to Inquiring Minds.

I'm Kishore Hari.

Indre will be back next week.

Each week, we bring you a new, in-depth exploration of the space for science, politics,

and society collide.

We endeavor to find out what's true, what's left to discover, and why it all matters.

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Do you remember graphene? That material that was going to solve all of these incredible problems

that came on the scene about 15 years ago?

It was hyped as this incredible solution because of the amazing properties of this material.

It could conduct electricity. It was

incredibly lightweight. It was incredibly strong. So graphene was going to be in everything from

the sides of ships to electrical power cables to revamping how batteries work. Well, it's been about

15 to 20 years since graphene first came on

the scene in terms of media coverage, and it begs the question, where are we now? The Verge did this

amazing story about an update to all of the work that has gone into making graphene, both from

a manufacturing standpoint and a research standpoint, much more

viable in today's economy. And I tracked down one of the people a feature in a video about

graphene, Dr. Joseph Meaney. Joseph and I actually met at a recent science conference, and I thought

...