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Take solace, all ye who’ve grown weary of carbon nanotube promises: The latest tubes are anything but nano.
![Much larger than carbon nanotubes, the newly discovered colossal carbon tubes are visible to the naked eye and have an unusual structure, shown here in a sketch.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/8504.jpg?resize=300%2C235&ssl=1)
While trying to grow better, longer nanotubes, researchers accidentally discovered a new type of carbon filament that’s tens of thousands of times thicker. Christened “colossal carbon tubes,” the new structures aren’t quite as strong as nanotubes but are still 30 times stronger than Kevlar per unit weight, and are potentially easier to turn into applications, suggests a new study in an upcoming Physical Review Letters.
Though exceptionally strong, nanotubes are hard to weave into larger fibers. Labs around the world have been trying to grow longer tubes or to string tubes together because long nanotube fibers could lead to futuristic products, such as ultralight bulletproof vests or even cables that could lift cargo into space at a fraction of the cost of a rocket. But researchers have had only partial success.