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A Riff from the Mesoscale?
bethanie writes: "From the New York Times: 'Cornell University physicists reported they had used a
laser beam to pluck the strings of a tiny silicon guitar just 10 millionths of a meter long! Using the same kind of technology that etches the tiny wires and components onto computer chips, the researchers at Cornell's NanoScale Science and Technology Facility have also constructed a nanodrum from a crisscross diamond mesh and a nanoxylophone with tiny diamond bars. If nanomanufacturing comes of age, something as tiny as a nanodrum or nanoharp might be mass-produced for use as extremely sensitive detectors for ultra high-frequency waves. Scientists have recently demonstrated infinitesimal nanotube thermometers and nanobalances capable of weighing a single virus. All this may foreshadow a day when doctors use nanocapsules to carry medicines, a few molecules at a time, to precise locations in the body, and nanorobots to crawl through the bloodstream and repair cells.' Well, scientific advancements that can save humankind are all well and good, but the real question is: Did they play Stairway to Heaven?"
What's next? Tiny robotic bands? Crappy minute singers that call themselves Micro Bolton?
I'm scared for our future...
Goo goo g'joob.
"[R]esearchers at Cornell's NanoScale Science and Technology Facility have... constructed a nanodrum.... All this may foreshadow a day when doctors use nanocapsules to carry medicines.... to precise locations in the body, and nanorobots to crawl through the bloodstream and repair cells."
"Mr. Jackson, we've finally discovered the cause of your tinnitus."
"Doc, you really've found out why my ears been ringing and I been so irritable all this last month?"
"Mr. Jackson, it appears that you've gotten a rock band lodged in your right ear. It's playing ads for the new Britney Spears come-back CD, "Oops, Grandma Did It Again (Saphic Style)"."
"Now Doc, howsa whole rock band playin' ads for some old rock star get in my ear? That don't make no sense."
"Science marches on, Mr. Jackson. It's a little thing called 'nano-tecnology'. You see, back in 2003, Cornell University made this little tiny drum and guitar set. Really tiny. And since then, well, let me explain, nano-hackers and spamers have marched on too...."
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
The article tells us the frequency of vibration as well as the range of human hearing. NYT Science writing always uses these analogies. Would a NYT audience respond well to a headline:
pulsed YAG laser excites VHF phonons in etched Si crystal
Maybe they would if we put "nano" in the title a few more times