Tiniest

I hope the former record-holders aren’t too cross: a team of researchers recently made the smallest, tightest knot yet known, landing themselves top spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.Modern Yet Retro | JBL Spinner BT ReviewThe knot is composed of 54 atoms, chained together and ensnared in a trefoil, the simplest nontrivial knot. The knot has no loose end; it is a continuous loop, passing through itself in mesmerizing arcs. The team’s work describing the self-assembled “metallaknot” was published in Nature…

The lush, volcanic hills of Sulawesi in Indonesia are home to several species of fanged frogs with unusual reproductive habits, including Limnonectes larvaepartus – the only species of frog in the world known to give birth to live tadpoles.Now, this tropical island has revealed another one of its secrets: the world's smallest frog with fangs.Related to the other fanged frog species, the newly found Limnonectes phyllofolia is a traditional amphibian egg layer.The new species of fanged frog, Limnonectes phyllofolia. (Sean…

Astronomers have now identified the tiniest brown dwarf, which is believed to be only three to four times the mass of Jupiter. The discovery was made using the James Webb Space Telescope, and it could provide new insight into these planet-like objects that form the same way stars do.I say planet-like because brown dwarfs are not actually considered stars or planets. In fact, they straddle the line that divides planets and stars. They form similarly to other stars. However, they do not grow dense enough to…

Living the RV life is a dream for many people. Taking a camper out on the open road, exploring at your own pace and sleeping at impromptu sites along the way, it all carries a certain romantic charm. But what if you’re not super excited about the whole “motor vehicle” part of the RV adventure? Well, then you just might take a similar route to these two handy fellows who built their own mini-RV on the back of a bicycle. Or perhaps a tricycle is the more appropriate term, since this is really…

Image via 20th Century Fox The next stepping stone in the Marvel Cinematic Universe‘s Multiverse Saga is knocking at our doors, with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania gearing up for its theatrical debut tomorrow. We may be in for a rocky start to Phase Five if early reviews are any indication, but with the promise of an ever-gripping performance from Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror and a big step forward in the MCU’s tonal intentions, we’d say it will be worth checking out nevertheless. It’s a big step…

It was pretty obvious to every superhero fan that Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man, until his sad demise, sat at the centre of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Who brought Ultron into existence? Yes, the billionaire philanthropist with the zippy one-liners. Who invented time travel in order to defeat Thanos? That guy who loved shawarma, weapons of mass destruction and casual sexism (at least in his early outings).Since Tony Stark’s death in Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has been crying out for a focal point. Doctor Strange looked…

Giant sea scorpions once roamed the ancient Devonian sea 400 million years ago. Now, researchers are learning more about that world. Credit: Aunt Spray | Shutterstock.com Trapped for millennia, the tiniest liquid remnants of an ancient inland sea have now been revealed. The surprising discovery of seawater sealed in what is now North America for 390 million years opens up a new avenue for understanding how oceans change and…

The makers of semiconductors running smartphones, TVs and other electronic gizmos like to brag about the power of their components. They also boast that the chips doing all the complex work are shrinking.The race to miniaturization signals breakthroughs in processing speed or energy consumption and can help win lucrative contracts. But the battle to be the top small-fry has led to big confusion. Chips carry a number tied to the size of its transistors, and, for years, it was believed that the lower the number, the better…

One of the coolest things about the funky electric vehicles sprinkled around China’s largest online shopping platform is their small size. They often look like they were inspired by full-size vehicles, but then somehow shrunk in the wash. Though this week’s entry in the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column looks like it might have partially melted in the wash too. That’s a win for us though, since now it gets to become the world’s smallest taco truck! Tiniest taco truck Err, perhaps it’s…

The smallest-ever remote-controlled walking robot has been built by Northwestern University engineers, and it comes in the guise of a tiny, charming peekytoe crab. These tiny crabs, which are only a half-millimetre long, can bend, twist, crawl, walk, turn, and even jump. The researchers also created millimetre-sized robots that resemble inchworms, crickets, and beetles. Though the research is still in its early stages, the researchers hope their technology will help them get closer to developing micro-sized robots that…