Tiny Tech

Episode 005 What would happen if you were to take a gold coin and cut it into two pieces, and then into four, and kept going until you had very tiny pieces consisting of perhaps a thousand gold atoms each?

Episode 004 In the 1966 movie “Fantastic Voyage”, Hollywood star Raquel Welch was part of a surgical team that was placed aboard a submarine, miniaturized to microscopic size, and injected into the bloodstream of a man.

Episode 003 Transistors are everywhere: in computers, in cell phones, and even in those gimmicky greeting cards that play tunes when they’re opened.

Episode 002 We live in a world of change, and the technology that surrounds us is changing especially fast. One important contributor is something called nanotechnology.

Episode 001 Let’s talk small, really small. The field of nanotechnology is making big advances toward achieving precise control of matter on the nanometer scale. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, or about the size of four adjacent atoms.

Episode 032 If you’ve seen homes with rooftop solar panels, you might have wondered if they really save the homeowner money. It turns out that - at today's electricity prices - they can, but only because of government subsidies and incentives.

Episode 031 When scientists take pictures or movies of atom-sized objects, they often use a T.E.M. – a type of electron microscope that transmits an electron beam through the sample.

Episode 030 Consider the gecko, a fascinating lizard. Geckos have the amazing ability to walk upside down even on the undersides of smooth surfaces such as glass. This ability is due to the millions of tiny flexible hairs on the undersides of their feet.

Episode 029 Light emitting diodes, or LEDs, have been used in commercial products since the 1960s. They are popular light sources for public lighting and signage, and for displays in TV’s, cell phones, and other mobile devices.

Episode 028 It has recently become popular to place solar panels on the rooftops of houses, in order to reduce the homeowner’s electric bill. But solar panels are too expensive for many homeowners, and impractical for those who live in high rises.

Episode 027 The 1930s radio version of the great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, often exclaimed “Elementary, my dear Watson!” when he reached an obvious conclusion.

Episode 026 Teeth make eating possible, sharks scary, and smiles pretty. But when you have a cavity, you need to see a dentist. For over 200 years, dentists have been filling cavities with amalgams, which are mixtures of silver, mercury, and other metals.

Episode 025 The plastic items we all know so well are made of polymers, materials consisting of simple repeating units of particular chemicals. As it turns out, nature is a brilliant polymer chemist.

Episode 024 When I’m at the grocery store, I always seem to be in the slowest checkout line. But…it's faster than it used to be because nearly everything I buy comes with a barcode on the label.

Episode 023 In the movie Back to the Future, George McFly was a little confused when he told his future wife “I am your density.” To a scientist, density is the weight of an object, divided by its volume. Some solids, such as balsa wood, have very low densities.