Funny World Wide Web

A team of University of Michigan researchers has recently created a set of electron microscope images of carbon nanotube structures depicting images of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. John Hart, leader of the research team says it wasn’t a political statement, but an attempt to draw attention to what is possible these days with nanotechnology, and imaging at the very small scale. I’ll take him up on this invitation and share with you some other images of very tiny things in our world. For visualizing the scale, most measurements below are in microns – one micron is a millionth of a meter – human hair is approximately 100 microns thick

Squid Suckers

400 microns

a weevil

its snout is just over 100 microns wide

a leaf from a Black Walnut

protrusion at center is just over 50 microns

A Microelectromechanical system (MEMS) gear train

larger gear at center is about 80 microns

Microalgae

Rime on a columnar snow crystal

Pollen

largest one at center is nearly 100 microns wide

brain cells

melanoma cell