Carbon

Ah, good old element number 6 - carbon. Life just wouldn't be the same without it. Carbon compounds include amino acids, sugars, proteins, caffeine, and pretty much anything else necessary for life.

Elemental carbon (without any other atoms connected to it) is pretty cool, too. Carbon comes in different allotropes, which means that the carbon atoms form different configurations. When the atoms form a crystal lattice, you get diamond. When the atoms line up in flat sheets, you get graphite. A third allotrope, containing 60 carbon atoms in a soccer-ball shape, is called buckminsterfullerene (or buckyball) because of its similarity to the geodesic dome desinged by Buckminster Fuller.

Buckminsterfullerene (buckyball) allotrope of carbon.

We often hear of "carbon footprints" and the need to reduce them. A carbon footprint refers specifically to the gas carbon dioxide (two oxygen atoms bonded to one carbon atom), and the impact of a particular activity on the emission of CO2 to the atmosphere. Some geniuses at the website Null Hypothesis have come up with a brilliant way to reduce our carbon footprint - stop breathing. To quote:

The average person takes 24,000 breaths a day, breathing in approximately 6g of carbon dioxide, but breathing out around 800g during the same time. Over a year, you personally will add a net 290kg of CO2 to the atmosphere, just by exhaling. Multiply that by a global population of 6.5 billion and it adds up to a criminal 1.88 gigatonnes.

If we each merely cut out one breath in three, we could decrease the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere each year by a staggering 0.63 gigatonnes. That’s 0.63 billion tonnes - the same effect as saving 5 million acres of land (an area the size of Wales) from deforestation, or recycling 192 million tonnes of waste instead of trashing it.

I don't know about you, by my respiration rate decreases significantly when I'm asleep. So I'm going to go save the planet...please don't interrupt my nap.