Smallist

Are you a doctor with a small practice? A hypochondriac in a studio? A batshit insane celebrity? Then you’ve got to have the latest in ultrasound: The Acuson P10 is a handheld ultrasound, designed to be carried around by the physician like a stethoscope. I thought these things required a goo layer on the belly to work, but who knows. It weighs 1.6 pounds and boots up in 5 seconds, but it uses the slower EDGE network and requires a two year contract with AT&T. Oh wait a minute, that’s the iPhone. Via Engadget.

This robotic submarine, designed by scientists in Israel, has a diameter of 1mm. Using magnetic induction as a power source, it can crawl through blood veins. At the moment, that’s about all it can do — it’s still in the design phases. And it seems that the design doesn’t allow for a great deal of control, as of yet. But it’s a promising development. And for some reason the linked article concludes with an oddly in-depth synopsis of
Fantastic Voyage.

Here’s a book that will raise goosepumps: Human Wildlife charts all the microscopic critters that are living in you. And on you. Right now. No matter how hard you scrub. Ew! Via MetaEfficient.

Here’s 6 H₂O molecules stuck together in what’s the smallest possible crystal of ice. Or if you’re being cute about it, the smallest snowflake. Scientists were able to get the image using a scanning tunneling microscope to photograph a metallic surface at 5 degrees above absolute zero. They even had to turn down the microscope’s electron beam to the lowest setting, lest the individual electrons disturb the crystal.

The research will help explain how water can form on different surfaces, and how it interacts simultaneously with the atoms of the surface and the other water molecules. Plus it touches on the nucleation processes which create clouds and rain. The study is available here.

Wolffia, a type of duckweed, is the smallest flowering plant. They float on the top of ponds, as the name suggests. Each has a single pistil and stamen, and each produces a the world’s smallest fruit, the size of a grain of salt, called a “utricle.” Here’s an electron micrograph image of a single flowering Wolffia, labelled so you can see where all the naughty parts are.

A new nanostructured coating, designed at RPI, removes almost all reflections from a surface. The technique works by angling little nanorods to reduce the index of refraction to near that of air. Apparently, this could increase LED efficiency by 40%.

The Vatican has decided to put solar panels on the roof of one of the Vatican’s newer buildings, a hall built in 1971. Their scientists expect very high efficiency for the panels, since the sun revolves around Rome.

Via Treehugger.

J’sha, the artist previously mentioned here, has created his latest nanoartwork. NanoLite is an image of a lighthouse 0.4 millimeters tall.

Previously discussed here, Heartlander gets a spread in the NYT.

Via Make Magazine, a tutorial on how to make tiny, solar powered robots from cheap parts: