Camera-shy exploding heatsinks

The nanotubes, filaments of pure carbon less than one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair with walls just one atom thick, turn out to be the best heat-conducting material mankind has ever known. Not only are they exceptionally tough - 100 times as strong as steel - but researchers now claim they may find applications as miniature heat pipes in the next generation of heatsinks.

Scientists found that sound waves carrying thermal energy travel through carbon nanotubes at roughly 10,000 metres per second - considerably faster than heat moves by conductivity through conventional heatsink materials such as aluminium.

Now we are shocked to discover that any heatsink made of such material would be fine up until the point someone attempted to take a publicity photo - exposure to photographic flash causes the nanotubes to spontaneously combust.
Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have discovered that single-walled carbon nanotubes, when exposed to a conventional photographic flash, emit a loud pop and then ignite. While this probably makes them a tad iffy for use in PCs, it does however mean they might be used to remotely trigger explosives, surely a much more sensible purpose. µ