Thinking small

If a tree falls in a forest, but no-one writes about it on their blog, did it really happen? THINK ABOUT IT.

I read a story somewhere (on paper, I know that much) about a step forward in nanotechnology. At least I think I did. Apparently they have found a way of making the teeniest, tiniest cups that have ever been made. They measure a fentilitre. Or possibly a femalitre. I can't remember. Anyway, the excellent thing is that these new cups are designed to be inkpots for nanobots. If you share Blogmarch's admiration for the very small, you will enjoy the image of a pensive micro-machine licking the end of its tiny quill before dipping into an even more diminutive receptacle of small ink.

However. As a serious journalist, I attempted to confirm my sources before writing this piece. But my searches using all the terms mentioned have drawn a blank. I have a feeling it might have been in Private Eye, but I left that on the tube. And maybe it was satire – I can never never quite tell when they are joking, those clever types.

I once wrote an essay about a Saxon burial trove in Sussex that contained a chest that had been traded and pillaged all the way from (what is now) northern India, bearing marks of the cultures it had passed through. This demonstrated the active trading routes of the so-called dark ages, and the fact that those people were not as culturally distinct from each other as we used to assume. My tutor liked my essay, but wondered where I had read about this particular object. I thought she had told us about it in her most recent seminar, complete with slides. It seems I had fallen asleep and dreamt it.

I still don't entirely believe that the chest doesn't exist. As for the nanobot inkpots, they may be there already, just too small to see.

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nanobot, Private Eye, inkpot