To create the point-contact transistor, Shockley's team modified the cat's whisker by placing two fine metal wires close together on the surface of a germanium crystal, turning it from a diode into a triode.

ECONOMIST: The middle age of the transistor

"It gives you the ability to print very fine metal patterns that could be used in biosensors or security features where you need to print a pattern and pass an electrical current through it, " said Mr Bishop.

BBC: NEWS | Technology | 'Magic ink' that makes metal grow

Material for each color is deposited on the substrate through a fine metal mask, with one mask used for each color so that colors line up in a precise, very close pattern that, to the human eye, appears to create one pixel, or point of light.

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Left in ruins, the old brick exterior has metal walkways that ascend to a cupola with fine views over Guanabara Bay and downtown Rio.

BBC: Bohemian Santa Teresa

This wide-barreled, metal-bodied pen has the heft and balance of a fine writing instrument.

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There was Erasmus Darwin, an enormously fat doctor, Matthew Boulton, a pushy metal-goods manufacturer, and Josiah Wedgwood, the man who turned fine pottery into a commercial goldmine.

ECONOMIST: 18th-century science

One of Mr. Talbot's favorites is a fine, stiff netlike fabric used by the automobile industry as a support material between upholstery and metal or impact-resistant plastics.

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