Until now, panguite had neither been seen in nature nor created in a lab.

MSN: 1969 fireball meteorite reveals new ancient mineral

In the current issue of the journal Nature, Hod Lipson from Cornell University describes robots in his lab with a limited ability to self-reproduce.

NPR: Birds Do It, Bees Do It�� Now Robots Do, Too

Such crystals grown in the lab by traditional methods are about 100 times smaller than the crystals nature makes.

BBC: By BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David Whitehouse