HSS' transducer is a 28-micron-thick plastic film that flutters when exposed to an electric field (because it is "piezoelectric").

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One Saturday evening in early 2001 Rabinowitz mixed the drug with a solvent, transforming the mound of powder into a film 1 micron thick (that's a thousandth of a millimeter) coating a piece of foil.

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The proton then travels through a film just 18 microns thick to oxygen on the other side.

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They found that the mucus film was typically less than 35 nanometres thick (a nanometre is a millionth of a millimetre).

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The tiny compartment that the film-maker sits in is made from thick steel, which is able to resist the 1, 000 atmospheres of pressure he experienced at full ocean depth.

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Producer Adam Tandy said the film would be "set in the same world" as In The Thick Of It, but declined to say whether any characters from the TV series would make an appearance.

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The film evokes the wonder of a country where the medieval is still recent and the landscape is thick with centuries of cultural invention.

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