To start off the new year of 2024, here is a series of pictures of scientists holding tiny things in their fingers close up to the camera, just like you asked.
Above image: Piezoelectric sensor - University of Houston - 2023
Optical coherence tomography uses light waves to take cross sectional images - R Wilson at NIST - Apr 2023
Graphene implant on tattoo paper - Ning Liu at University of Texas at Austin - 2023
Implantable nanofluidic device to deliver immunotherapy into a pancreatic tumor - Houston Methodist Research Institute - 2023
Spin-coated perovskite solar cells - Zhu Zonglong at City University of Hong Kong - 2023
Smart Bandage - University of Glasgow - 2023
Tunable superconducting diode - University of Minnesota Twin Cities - 2023
Perovskite silicon tandem solar cell - Johannes Beckedahl, Lea Zimmerman, HZB - 2023
Flexible perovskite solar cell - Stepan Demchyshyn - 2023
Nanoparticle sensors - Macquarie University - 2023
Remaining Denisova 11 Denny bone fragment - Katerina Douka, Tom Higham, Institute for Basic Science - 2023
Prototype solid-state stacked battery - Empa - Swiss National Science Foundation - 2023
Miniature human heart on a microchip - Tissue Dynamics - 2023
Shapeshifting robot CLARI - Casey Cass CU Boulder - 2023
14nm analog AI chip - Ryan Lavine for IBM - 2023
Small robotic devices microflier - Mark Stone for University of Washington - 2023
Screen-printed, flexible sensors attached to earbuds - Erik Jepsen University of California San Diego - 2023
MilliMobile the self-driving robot powered by light or radio waves - Mark Stone University of Washington - 2023
Thermal magIC thermometry camera - Jennifer Lauren Lee at NIST - 2023
Wearable sensor for glucose monitoring - Kate Myers at Penn State - 2023
Faux Fingers - AI Art via Lexica - Hand holding a old cassette tape - 2023
Microneedle skin patch - University of Bath - 2023
Inverted perovskite solar cell with hole-selective contacts - EPFL Felix T. Eickemeyer - 2023
Lead-halide perovskite solar cells - Pan Xu of Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences - 2023
Flexible X-ray detector - Dr Nanayakkara at University of Surrey - 2023
Old Musings on Fingers of Science circa 2022:
I wish I could articulate my fascination with these pictures, something about the essence of discovery, the seed of wonder? It's close up so it's under enhanced scrutiny by the viewer. Maybe it's the difference between this little thing being a big deal, and yet being so tiny. What's the difference between a photograph of the Large Hadron Collider and a photograph of this "artificial fairy" above? You can hold it in your hands, and not just your hands, in between your fingers. And also it's being held, controlled, protected, by the very hands that made it. Maybe just because it's the scientists fingers, not their face or their lab coat or their million dollar petaflopping supercomputers, but their fingers. The physical products of scientific endeavor, the pinnacle of human technology, being held by the most simple piece of "technology" on this Earth -- the human hand.
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