So far, though, this has been experimentally limited to small particles and a few tiny molecules.
Nitrogen oxides contribute to haze and form small particles that make people sick and even kill them.
Opponents in Minisink worry about air emissions of acidic gases and small particles that would fall on nearby farmland.
And if silver is turned into very small particles, it has antimicrobial properties that are not present in the bulk material.
Last week America's Environmental Protection Agency reversed its policy on the use of extremely small particles of silver for killing germs.
Polish-born Simcha Blass is credited with introducing new "spaghetti tubes" to Israel in the 1950s, with longer passageways that would not get blocked by small particles.
Researchers at the University of Bristol and the University of Dundee have wrangled small particles and cells by using a sonic (or ultrasonic) vortex.
Components of tobacco smoke such as carbon monoxide, nicotine, benzene and small particles can easily be measured in the air of a smoker's home or workplace.
As plastic is a petroleum based product these small particles act as persistent organic polluters, which means that they form a sponge attracting toxins such as insecticides and pesticides.
One set of small-scale sunshine-reduction experiments discussed in Asilomar would send plumes of various sulphurous fluids in the stratosphere to find out which would best produce a haze of small particles similar to those that cool the planet after a large volcanic eruption.
And we can surmise that bombardment by small cosmic particles over a long period might do similar damage.
FORBES: Lucretius's Legacy Depended On The Toughness Of Vellum. What Will Save Ours?
One common method was to cover small gold particles with genetic material and shoot them into the nucleus of the plant cell with a pressure gun.
Airborne particles small enough to be inhaled are known to damage health.
You have to dry the vaccine without killing the cells in it, and you have to make the particles small enough to be inhaled but not so small that they are exhaled.
Arryx, in Chicago, sells tweezerlike tools that can grab particles as small as 150nm.
Those particles are small enough to stay suspended in the air for hours, and can enter into the airways of a person's lungs, Dr McNerney said.
If properly fitted and worn correctly, N95 respirators filter out at least 95 percent of particles as small as 0.3 micrometers, which is smaller than influenza viruses, the report notes.
CNN: Report on handling H1N1 cases: Use masks with airtight seals
The report also recommends that NASA created a database of particles too small to be tracked, step up work with other national space agencies, and begin working on ways to clean up debris.
FORBES: Report: NASA Needs More Funds and Staff To Handle Space Junk
According to NASA there are about 20, 000 pieces of space junk bigger than 10cm (3.9 inches) and its chief scientist for orbital debris Nicholas L. Johnson says most robotic satellite missions are vulnerable to particles as small as 5mm (0.2 inches) -- there are thought to be millions of those in orbit.
Through the book we come to appreciate just how big our galaxy--not to mention the universe--is, while understanding how small life's essential particles and agents truly are.
The particles had to be small enough to navigate the twists and turns through the mouth, throat and trachea but not so small that they would be easily exhaled.
Pollen particles are "so small, even if you're not sitting under a tree or anything, you're going to get large amounts of pollen that could be blown from miles away, " Mr. Robinson said.
It uses a small spectrometer to bounce infrared light off particles in the sample.
The trick here is that these particles are very, very small, which means they're essentially all surface.
BBC: Millions of Bangladeshis are forced to drink unsafe water
But the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety said that although small levels of radioactive iodine and caesium particles had been found in rain falling in part of the country, they were not enough to cause concern over public health.
If you were to assume that every point in the universe contained some information, then even a small office would be so densely packed with particles that it would collapse in on itself like a black hole, says Raphael Bousso, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Effects stemming from the Earth's atmosphere, from ocean tides and from the solar wind of charged particles were all found to be too small to explain the spacecrafts' extra velocity.
Although this is a small sample, it suggests that man-made dust particles predominate over naturally occurring ones.
Consider, for example, a spate of new studies that have found a rather convincing correlation between the presence of small particulate matter (PM2.5, the fine particles blown into the air by road traffic, coal-fired power plants, industrial manufacturing, and residential wood fuel combustion) and both obesity and diabetes.
FORBES: Two New Reasons to Worry about Air Pollution: Obesity and Diabetes
But the current interstellar particles that are--recently fell in are small and hard to find.
应用推荐