Changing the behavior of a material isn't big magic? it's nanoscale chemistry. Alejandro Lopez-Bezanilla used the computing power of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputer, America's fastest, to study the effects of adding oxygen, sulfur and hydrogen to nanoribbons made of boron nitride. The added elements changed the behavior of boron nitride ? a good insulator ? into that of a metal. That makes the material promising for faster computer chips and smarter cell phones. Stable, inexpensive boron nitride can serve as a substrate to support blazing-fast graphene, a material being studied for next-generation electronics. Graphene and boron nitride can be created in 1-atom-thick sheets and cut into ribbons to carry electrons and their on/off electronic messages. —Sandra Allen McLean
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