Microscopic Noodle Bowls

A team of Japanese scientists have created the world's smallest noodle bowl with a diameter of 1/25,000 of an inch under a project aimed at developing nanotube-processing technology. In fact, the bowl is so small that you have to use a microscope to see it.

Mechanical engineering professor Masayuki Nakao claims, “We believe it's the world's smallest ramen bowl, with the smallest portion of noodles inside, though they are not edible.”

The Japanese-style ramen bowl was carved out of microscopic nanotubes (tube-shaped pieces of carbon). They created a "string of 'noodles' that measured one-12,500th of an inch in length, with a thickness of one-1.25 millionth of an inch."

The microscopic bowl which was first created in December 2006 was only revealed this last week after it was entered for a microphotography competition.