Japanese scientists craft planet's smallest ramen bowl

Now that just looks extra scrumptious, doesn't it? What you're peering at above is believed to be the world's tiniest ramen bowl, created by a clever bunch of scientists from the University of Tokyo. Reportedly, Masayuki Nakao and his students "used a carbon-based material to produce a noodle bowl with a diameter 1 / 25,000 of an inch in a project aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology." In other words, they carved a bowl out of nanotubes, which can now only be viewed through a microscope. Best of all, they didn't stop with just the dinnerware, as they managed to insert a number of inedible noodles to round things off -- each of which measured "one-12,500th of an inch in length with a thickness of one-1.25 millionth of an inch." Don't get any bright ideas here, McDonald's, ditching SuperSize was bad enough.

[waiownsyou @ Jun 1st 2008 2:05AM]

ROFL!

Please, I can't take anymore of these stereotypes!!

LOL

[Rob P @ Jun 1st 2008 2:58AM]

I so solly.

[b @ Jun 1st 2008 3:37AM]

its "i so sori."

Japanese doesn't have 'l's

[ssuk @ Jun 1st 2008 11:48AM]

b, because the Japanese don't have an "l" in their language, they replace them with "r". This causes all kinds of problems when re-translating words back into English because the r can be an "r" or an "l" in our language, and often non-native English speakers translating Katakana into English will mistakenly put a "l" instead of an "r" or vice-versa. If Rob intended this, is another matter. But the more you know. *jingle*

[mike @ Jun 1st 2008 1:52PM]

Shut up, weeaboo.

[cromas @ Jun 1st 2008 3:32PM]

Phonologically, the Japanese "r" is somewhere between the english "l" and "d." It's really nothing like "r" at all. English "r" is pronounced using one's lips, while the Japanese "r" is pronounced by briefly flapping one's tongue on the tissue just behind one's teeth.



(...that's what she said.)

[Yamikotai @ Jun 1st 2008 7:33PM]

Cromas, I'd love to invite you to scotland someday :)
But seriously, you seem to be mixing up accents and languages. I pronounce my 'r's very similarly to the Japanese 'r's.

[cromas @ Jun 8th 2008 6:26PM]

Yamikotai:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_phonology

[Dillon @ Jun 1st 2008 2:06AM]

The smallest university students will be pleased.

[For2itous @ Jun 1st 2008 2:33PM]

But perfect for Dr. Evil's newest height-challenged sidekick, 'Nano Me'...

[Ron Smith @ Jun 1st 2008 2:09AM]

Does this have any practical uses? No, it is only a PR stunt. Tell me when we get carbon-tubes longer than a ruler.

[iPriest @ Jun 1st 2008 2:39AM]

Ofcourse this has practical uses. Models can now say they eaten two bowls of noodles and feel stuffed

[Ayman @ Jun 1st 2008 3:33AM]

ipriest
I was thinking the same thing

[Johan S @ Jun 1st 2008 5:37AM]

Does dissing it on engadget have practical use?

Some people play video games for fun, these guys did this for fun. It's an entry in a competition.

It also helps develop understanding of building things on a nanoscale, you can't go for something complex and a mechanical cancer fighting nano bot without ensuring that u have mastered some of the building techniques. This is an exercise of sorts + fun + competition.

Not everything a person does has to have a use. When galileo was mapping the movements of the planets and jupiters moons he was doing it out of curiousity and fun, he had no idea astronomical observation would eventually be used by newton to unlock the secrets of gravity's laws.

[paul34 @ Jun 1st 2008 2:20AM]

They must be chicken flavor.

[bolezhinkov @ Jun 1st 2008 2:22AM]

This is the true Power of Science.

[Epignosis @ Jun 1st 2008 2:23AM]

Hungry. Some of this with E.coli pancakes.. Yummm...

[Bobs @ Jun 1st 2008 12:27PM]

mmm, pancakes

[richard @ Jun 1st 2008 2:38AM]

Those crazy Japanese!

[Bhavish Manshar. @ Jun 1st 2008 2:49AM]

Hmmm noodles, wonder what else they will make in nano portions, sushi anyone?

I hope this isn't a solution to the bio-fuel and hunger problem we have now... back to the drawing board!

[gad get @ Jun 1st 2008 1:40PM]

Maybe I will be able to eat an entire serving of sushi one day!

[Ray @ Jun 1st 2008 2:53AM]

Now they need the world's smallest condoms

[Darkroom @ Jun 1st 2008 3:32AM]

... said the mega stud who posts on Engadget at 2:30am on a saturday night.

[Ray @ Jun 1st 2008 10:02AM]

thats right

[Reader @ Jun 1st 2008 2:57AM]

I've seen smaller.

[Dudeguy1234 @ Jun 1st 2008 10:06AM]

That's what she said.

[Matt @ Jun 1st 2008 3:14AM]

After eating this you are surely going to be hungry 30 minutes later.

[Keith MacDonald @ Jun 1st 2008 12:37PM]

More like 30 nanoseconds later...

[happy_penguin @ Jun 1st 2008 3:14AM]

Finally a bowl which matches the nutritional value of ramen noodles!

[roflercopterer @ Jun 1st 2008 3:22AM]

actually ramen is pretty damn nutritious

[Haikibutsu @ Jun 1st 2008 5:04AM]

And delicious!

Esp with hard boiled eggs!

[Macdelaney @ Jun 1st 2008 3:33AM]

this was on giz, like, 4 days agoo

[hiko36 @ Jun 1st 2008 4:05AM]

thanks for being that guy...

[James @ Jun 1st 2008 6:47AM]

you know its kinda funny, when giz uses a story from engadget, they usually cite you guys. oh, of course you read it somewhere else before you saw it on giz.

[Steven @ Jun 1st 2008 5:46AM]

"one-1.25 millionth of an inch".

Oh, I love Egyptian fractions! In case you don't, it's just 20 nm. Erm, that's nanometer, not nautical miles. Damn measurement standards.

[maty @ Jun 1st 2008 6:29AM]

Yep. Metric system is much easier!

For those not versed in things below mm, 20nm = 0.0002mm!
(1mm = 1000µm = 1,000,000nm)

[Alex @ Jun 1st 2008 5:50AM]

Wow.

I wonder if people get paid to do this...hmm...

[Fubar @ Jun 1st 2008 8:54AM]

Well, if the Japanese pay their graduate students the way Americans do, the answer is "barely."

[Alex @ Jun 1st 2008 1:45PM]

Hoh!
You stole my name!
SOUL THIEF!

[Alex @ Jun 1st 2008 5:51AM]

Do they have a micro-sized flavor packet?

[lance @ Jun 1st 2008 6:34AM]

This isn't new, gourmet restaurants have been selling this for years!
I know the economy is bad but this is ridiculous. No wonder people are starving!

This is what MacAir users eat.

[Rowdehaj @ Jun 1st 2008 6:41AM]

I, for one, welcome our tiny microscopic ramen-eating overlords.

Wait, what?

[Dr Zoidberg @ Jun 1st 2008 7:32AM]

Don't you mean rAmen?

I know it was stupid but I just couldn't help myself

[Nikonov @ Jun 1st 2008 10:42AM]

Lame diet joke goes here.

[Justin @ Jun 1st 2008 11:20AM]

Really? Serioulsy, come on. It scares me that THIS is what scientists are spending their research money on. The smallest bowl of Ramen Noodles? What? Whatever happened to curing cancer? lol

[gad get @ Jun 1st 2008 1:48PM]

Some materials, when formed into small enough nano-particles, take on fundamentally different properties than they normally possess. As it turns out, nanoscale ramen noodles cure cancer!

[Sachin @ Jun 1st 2008 11:22AM]

"ditching SuperSize was bad enough."

Weird, I thought Ryan got out of his home once in a while to see his fellow Americans.

[Wormbolt @ Jun 1st 2008 11:33AM]

Does it have a touchscreen?

If not, I don't want.

[Jarhead2012 @ Jun 1st 2008 1:23PM]

I want a plate of nano sized roflwaffles with it.

[Alex @ Jun 1st 2008 1:48PM]

Roflwaffles?
That would be invention of the century. How would they work, though? I expect you could fill a syringe with laughing gas and inject it into a waffle...