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Since Babylonian times, a still has provided the means to turn grain, fruit, or vegetables into an intoxicating drink. Today, a still may provide a solution to the more complex problem of how to detect diseases.

What are the ultimate limits to miniaturization? How small can machinery--with internal workings that move, turn, and vibrate--be produced? What is the smallest scale on which computers can be built? With uncanny and characteristic insight, these are questions that the legendary Caltech physicist Richard Feynman asked himself in the period leading up to a famous 1959 lecture, the first on a topic now called nanotechnology.

Engineers at the California Institute of Technology have invented an ingenious new method for depositing tiny amounts of materials on surfaces. The researchers say that the technique, known as plasmon-assisted chemical vapor deposition, will add a powerful new tool to the existing battery of techniques used to construct microdevices.

Physicists at the California Institute of Technology have created the first nanodevices capable of weighing individual biological molecules. This technology may lead to new forms of molecular identification that are cheaper and faster than existing methods, as well as revolutionary new instruments for proteomics.

Physicists for several years have been predicting a new age of semiconductor devices that operate by subtle changes in the orientation of electron spins. Known as "spintronics," the field relies on an intricate knowledge of the magnetic properties of materials and of how magnetic moments can be manipulated.

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