Buckyballs redux redux

I received an interesting comment from reader Martin G over at OhPurleese.com following my note about the “dangers of Fullerenes”:

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they have some toxic effects – but . . .

They’re all around us and have been for millions of years. Any old soot contains a fair percentage of Bucky balls, tubes etc etc.

The wonder was it took so long for us to find them!”

He’s certainly right, but I still think that won’t stop the scaremongers shouting down any new research in this and almost every other chemical field.