Passage: Richard Smalley, 62

The Rice University professor who helped discover buckyballs, the soccer ball-shaped form of carbon, and championed the field of nanotechnology, has died. He shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry with fellow Rice chemist Robert Curl and British chemist Sir Harold Kroto for the discovery of the new form of carbon, which they dubbed buckminsterfullerene -- buckyballs for short -- because of its resemblance to the geodesic domes designed by Buckminster Fuller. "In my view, this was a singular event in the history of nanotechnology," said Neal Lane, a senior fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Nanotechnology, for things measured in billionths of a meter, involves manipulating materials on an atomic or molecular scale to build microscopic devices. Smalley's leadership helped the U.S. to launch the National Nanotechnology Initiative in 2000.
-- Associated Press