take big, complex machines and make them small. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of nanotechnology. But not just small, so very small that nanoengineers need powerful microscopes to even see them. And since the mid 1980s, nanotechnologists have periodically astonished us with micrometer-sized turbines, gears and other pieces of machinery.

But now, they have stumbled across something that has made them proud as never before. us researchers have spun a tiny device at phenomenally high speeds. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, usa , were simply trying to show the size of a microscopic gear wheel when they discovered that the ultra-low friction component