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IBM has developed the world’s smallest computer, which could help track objects, foil counterfeiters, and boost efficiency. A computer as big as a grain of salt could transform shipping that crisscrosses the planet, said IBM researchers who recently unveiled the experimental device. Using blockchain technology that would provide a secure and efficient log of physical objects tagged with the tiny computers, shippers could track goods at every step of extended supply chains, foiling counterfeiters and upping efficiency, Dan Friedman, senior manager of communication circuits and systems at IBM Research, told Seeker. “That’s what we want to do — something that...

Nepali teen bids for crown of world's smallest man Khagendra Thapa Magar: the Nepali is 18 but weighs just 10lbs When Khagendra Thapa Magar, who weighs just 10lbs, turned 18 yesterday he submitted an application to the Guinness Book of World Records, hoping to realise his ambition of being recognised as the planet’s shortest man, a title currently held by He Pingping of China, who is 28.7 inches tall. If Mr Magar’s claim is verified, he could turn out to be the joint shortest man of all time, according to Guinness, equalling the late Gul Mohammed of Delhi, who also...

World's smallest girl proud of her tiny size By Kate Day Last Updated: 2:44am BST 07/04/2008 At just 1ft 11 in tall, she is dwarfed by her neighbour's baby, but Jyoti Amge is 15 years old. How About That? Because news doesn't have to be serious The teenager, who is the world's smallest girl according to the Indian Book of Records, has a form of dwarfism called achondroplasia. Now fully grown, she weighs just 11 lb. Jyoti Amge with a neighbour's 13-month old baby and with her school friends Far from being unhappy about her tiny size, Jyoti says that...

December 23, 2006 From Scum, Perhaps the Tiniest Form of Life By WILLIAM J. BROAD The smallest form of life known to science just got smaller. Four million of a newly discovered microbe — assuming the discovery, reported yesterday in the journal Science, is confirmed — could fit into the period at the end of this sentence. Scientists found the microbes living in a remarkably inhospitable environment, drainage water as caustic as battery acid from a mine in Northern California. The microbes, members of an ancient family of organisms known as archaea, formed a pink scum on green pools of...

A 9-week-old kitten in El Cajon, Calif., is expected to win a place in the record books as the smallest cat in the world, according to a Local 6 News report. Heed the cat is only 3-inches tall and weighs in at just 1.2 pounds, the report said. Once Heed is full-sized in about six months, veterinarians believe he will become the new smallest cat in the world. Heed's owner has already contacted the Guinness Book Of World Records. Watch Local 6 News for more on this story. Copyright 2006 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. All rights reserved. This...

Small but perfectly formed, Pelagibacter ubique is a lean machine stripped down to the bare essentials for life.Humans have around 30,000 genes that determine everything from our eye colour to our sex but Pelagibacter has just 1,354, US biologists report in the journal Science. What is more, Pelagibacter has none of the genetic clutter that most genomes have accumulated over time. There are no duplicate gene copies, no viral genes, and no junk DNA. 'Chicken soup'The spareness of its genome is related to its frugal lifestyle. The shorter the length of DNA that needs to be copied each generation, the...

Malaysia has bought the rights from a Japanese firm to the world's smallest microchip that can be embedded in everything from currencies to human bodies. Announcing this on Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad said the microchip would boost the global “anti-terror” war. Mahathir said the revolutionary miniature chip, developed by Japan's FEC Inc., could be combined with current technology to "greatly prevent the possibilities of terrorist acts" as well as banknote and document counterfeiting. FEC (M) Sdn. Bhd. chief executive Kunioki Ichioka told reporters that the chip can also be inserted into the human body, animals, bullets, credit cards...

BERKELEY – Only 15 years after University of California, Berkeley, engineers built the first micro-scale motor, a UC Berkeley physicist has created the first nano-scale motor - a gold rotor on a nanotube shaft that could ride on the back of a virus. "It's the smallest synthetic motor that's ever been made," said Alex Zettl, professor of physics at UC Berkeley and faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "Nature is still a little bit ahead of us - there are biological motors that are equal or slightly smaller in size - but we are catching up." Zettl and his...