January 3, 2008: Nano-explosions?

I say explosions, the official caption says explosions... but they aren't really explosions, they just look like it, in this nano-scale photograph. I'm not even sure nano-scale is a word, or a hyphenated word, so you can bet that the following quote, explaining the shot, just perplexes me. But the photo, by one Fanny Beron, won first place in the Materials Research Society "Science as Art" competition. And it's cool!

......

..... I for one embrace our new orange cauliflower volcano overlords.

Eh. You can see the same thing whenever you pop a pimple.

Is that just a fancy way of saying these are imperfections in an electroplating job?

meh... that orange cauliflower is so 2007

This color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph shows an array of CoFeB nanowires, grown by pulse-current electrodeposition in a nanoporous alumina template. During the electrodeposition process, some of the nanowires overflowed on the template surface. "It's a reminder that nanoscale research can have unpredicted consequences at a high level," Beron says.

To quote the Geico caveman: "Uh...What???

Quote:

Originally Posted by borisivan ..... I for one embrace our new orange cauliflower volcano overlords.

I seriously need to get out more....I thought I was gonna see an iPod nano exploding.