NEWS OF THE WEEK
CONGRESS: Temporary spending bill averts government shutdown, at least for now ONGRESS PASSED and President Barack
JIM LO SCALZO/POOL/SIPA/NEWSCOM
President Obama signed temporary legislation to keep the government operating.
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Obama signed short-term legislation last week that cuts $4 billion from the federal budget and gives legislators until March 18 to hammer out a bill to fund the government until Sept. 30, which is the end of the fiscal year. The bill temporarily resolves a fiscal 2011 budget impasse between House of Representatives and Senate leaders, which could have resulted in a government shutdown after March 4, when an earlier temporary funding bill for the government expired. Congress has yet to pass a fiscal 2011 budget and has had to rely on these so-called continuing resolutions to keep the government operating. The impact of the $4 billion in spending cuts outlined in the shortterm extension bill is likely to be small. Some $1.2 billion comes from
‘SHAVING’ GRAPHENE NANOSCIENCE: Zinc treatment chemically peels off layers of graphene
D. KOSYNKIN
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Computergenerated image depicts zinc (blue) removing a single layer of graphene.
EMONSTRATING the ultimate in “taking a
little off the top,” chemists at Rice University have developed a method for etching multilayer graphene by chemically shaving off one layer at a time (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1199183). The technique gives researchers the ability to pattern device structures in multilayer graphene “with exquisite resolution and dexterity for complex device and display configurations,” project leader James M. Tour says. To strip off the single layer of graphene, the chemists coat the material with zinc and then rinse it with dilute hydrochloric acid. The treatment removes the top layer of material, leaving the lower layers intact. The researchers can apply the zinc in any pattern or shape, and they can repeat the process to remove additional layers. Until now, Tour says, there was no reliable method for stripping off a sheet of graphene. “One could only strip WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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programs that Obama himself sought to eliminate as unnecessary. The remainder is a mix of congressional earmarks, divided among nearly every government department except Defense. Obama said he was pleased that Congress had reached a two-week agreement, adding, however, that “we cannot keep doing business this way.” He urged congressional leaders to meet with Vice President Joseph Biden and other White House officials to find common ground, which might prove to be difficult. In late February, House Republicans, with little support from Democrats, passed 2011 budget legislation that would cut government spending by $61 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year and also nix many regulations unpopular with business (C&EN, Feb. 28, page 7). Senate Democrats strongly oppose the bill and have vowed to block its passage. In statements last week after approval of the stopgap measure, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (DNev.) and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) appeared to remain far apart. Boehner held fast to the earlier House-passed measure and said that in voting for the stopgap bill, Reid and other Senate Democrats had been “forced to retreat.” Reid accused Boehner’s caucus of threatening a government shutdown “if they don’t get everything they’re demanding.” Federal agencies have been mostly mum about the impact of a possible government shutdown. Agency officials note that they have been required since 1980 to have contingency plans in place for such an event, but they decline to provide details.—JEFF JOHNSON
all sheets right down to the substrate,” he says. The technique is not limited to graphene either. Tour’s group demonstrates that it also works to peel off a layer of graphene oxide. Tour tells C&EN that his group was originally using the zinc-acid process in an attempt to reduce graphene Scanning electron to graphane via hydrogena- micrograph of an owl tion. To their surprise, they created by removing a monolayer of graphene observed the single-layer oxide. stripping instead. “It’s one of those exciting times where nature gives us more than we intended to get,” he says. “That is where science really becomes delightful.” “Ultimately, the ability to peel just a single layer of graphene from a desired area with such a simple and robust technique is exceedingly useful,” Daniel Gunlycke and Paul E. Sheehan, scientists at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, in Washington, D.C., write in a commentary about the work. “Local graphene peeling should become a routine tool for researchers to explore new devices.”—BETHANY HALFORD
MARCH 7, 2011
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