Sir Harry Kroto, Nobel prize-winning chemist, dies at 76

Lord Rees and Richard Dawkins lead tributes to British scientist best known for creating carbon-based molecule buckminsterfullerene

Sir Harry Kroto, the British Nobel prize-winning chemist who co-discovered a new form of carbon, has died aged 76.

Kroto is best known for his role in revealing that carbon can exist in the form of a hollow football-like structure. Named "buckminsterfullerene" after the similarly shaped domed buildings produced by the American architect Buckminster Fuller, these structures soon became known as "buckyballs".