Mysteries of the Unseen World Page #2

in different directions

at the same time.

No aircraft can do this.

If we can see how nature's

ingenious devices work...

we can imitate them.

By tracking markers

on an insect's wings,

we can visualize

the airflow they produce.

What we learn could lead us

to new kinds of robotic flyers

that expand our vision

of important events

in remote places.

How many secrets remain

to be discovered

in the super-fast worlds of nature?

We move through

the landscape like giants,

unaware of the wonders

too small for us to see.

Long ago, we noticed

that a glass sphere

made things appear larger.

Grinding it down into a lens

magnified objects even more.

Stacking lenses in a tube

greatly multiplied the effect,

and the compound microscope

was born.

It let us peer into a world

we'd never seen before.

Suddenly, we could see

creatures in common pond water

that we didn't

even know existed.

But there is a limitation

to the compound microscope.

We can't see down

into the scales of the butterfly's wing

because visible light waves

are too big.

Everything smaller

goes out of focus.

We needed a microscope

that used something smaller

than visible light.

The scanning electron microscope

fires electrons,

smaller than atoms,

creating an image

that magnifies things

by as much as a million times.

It shows that deep

inside the tiny scales

of a butterfly's wing

are even smaller structures

which are shaped to reflect

only pure blue light waves,

giving the wings

of a Morpho butterfly

one of the most brilliant blues

in nature.

The electron microscope

reveals things

both bizarre and beautiful.

Guess what this is.

A butterfly egg.

The skin of a shark.

A caterpillar's mouth.

The eye of a fruit fly.

An eggshell.

A tomato stem.

A flea.

A snail's tongue.

We think we know most

of the animal kingdom,

but there may be millions

of tiny species

waiting to be discovered.

Even the air we breathe

is full of unseeable stuff-

pollen...

skin flakes...

insect parts...

animal hairs.

There's even matter from space,

including micro diamonds and jewels

from other planets

and supernova explosions.

30,000 tons of space dust

falls to the Earth every year.

Some of it is

in every breath inhaled

by all the living things on Earth,

including you.

And it gets

even more personal.

There are unseen creatures

living all over your body,

possibly including mites

that spend their entire lives

dwelling on your eyelashes,

crawling with their eight legs

over your skin at night.

They're on some of you...

right now.

When you're unlucky enough

to get a case of head lice,

this is what's living

in your hair.

More than 1,000 strains of bacteria

could be in your belly button.

This is what causes stinky feet.

Some 32 million bacteria

live on your skin,

most of them harmless

or even good for you.

There are far more organisms

living on you

than there are people on Earth.

It turns out that the world

of the really small

is full of clever things

we can use.

The surface of a lotus leaf

repels almost any liquid.

Whoa! That's so cool!

A super-close

look reveals the secret:

tiny hair-like bumps

that cause drops

to roll right off the leaf.

Maybe we could mimic this,

making a coating to shield

airplanes from ice buildup.

Once, it was a mystery

how a gecko could walk up

smooth glass.

Gecko feet are covered

by half a million tiny bristles

that branch into split ends,

each with a pad on the tip.

The structures build up

an electrical charge

that attracts them

to the surface,

adding up to incredible

sticking power

and a model

for a new kind of robot

that could climb

almost anything.

A spider also harbors secrets.

Spider silk thread is,

pound for pound, stronger than steel

and yet completely elastic.

Imagine what we might build

if we could produce

a synthetic version.

The first step is getting

a closer look at spider silk.

The journey could take us

all the way down to what we call

the nanoworld.

The silk is 100 times thinner

than a human hair.

On it, there's bacteria.

Near the bacteria,

ten times smaller, a virus.

Inside that, ten times smaller,

three strands of its DNA.

And nearing the limit

of our most powerful microscopes,

single carbon atoms.

Four of them are the size

of one nanometer.

Welcome to the nanoworld.

This incomprehensibly small

place is the new frontier.

Exploring it will lead

to huge changes in our lives.

Our most advanced microscopes

can now see this:

individual atoms, though fuzzy,

proving years of scientific theory,

simulated here.

And not only can we see them-

with the tip

of a powerful microscope,

we can actually move atoms

and begin to create

amazing nano devices.

Some could one day

patrol your body

for all kinds of diseases,

and clean out clogged arteries

along the way.

Tiny chemical machines

of the future

may even repair DNA.

One of the wildest things

about the nano world,

substances here

behave differently

than the same material

does in our world.

To us,

gold is golden in color.

But nano gold

can be any color.

It absorbs light

and generates heat,

leading to an idea:

injecting nano-sized gold particles

into the bloodstream...

which are chemically coded

to attach to cancerous cells.

An incoming laser beam

heats the gold particles...

burning the cells.

The promise of nano

goes beyond medicine.

Another material

with far different nano properties

is carbon,

the same breakable stuff

found in pencil lead.

At the nano scale,

it has mind-boggling strength.

With it, we've created

the world's thinnest material,

graphene,

one carbon atom thick.

It's harder than diamonds

but nearly

as flexible as rubber.

Turned into a roll,

it's called a carbon nanotube,

one of the strongest

and lightest materials on Earth.

With it, we could

one day make things

we can only dream about today.

It may even be possible

to use carbon nanotubes

to build an elevator to space.

We are on the threshold

of extraordinary advances

born of our drive to see

all that's hidden

in the world around us.

On a summer evening,

under an endless rain

of cosmic dust,

the air full of pollen

and skin flakes

and bits of everything on Earth...

people go about their lives...

Happy birthday.

- Happy birthday.

surrounded by the unseeable.

Knowing there's much more

around us than we can see...

forever changes

our understanding of the world.

Who knows what waits

to be seen...

What new wonders

will transform our lives.

We will just have to see.

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