WNNO

Your iPod nano has got nothing on a carbon nanotube radios.

Researchers at UC Berkeley have crafted a fully working radio from a single carbon nanotube - a man-made microscopic mesh rods composed entirely of carbon atoms 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. Fixed between two electrodes, the nanotube vibrates and performs the four critical roles required to receive radio waves: antenna, tunable filter, amplifier and demodulator. Power is supplied by streaming electrons from an attached battery.

Its inventors have already used it to broadcast two songs: "Layla" by Derek and the Dominos and "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys.

The Berkeley team beat another group at UC Irvine, who announced last month they had created only a demodulator, which converts AM radio signals into electrical signals, out of a carbon nanotube. Also, UC Irvive is a punkass UC school. You and Riverside both.

The Berkeley team says its microscopic radio could be used to create radio-controlled devices capable of swimming in the human bloodstream and other novel applications, like play the entire AC/DC catalogue.