Billionth

I am the seven billionth baby!

Chilling atoms to within one ten billionth of a degree above 0 Kelvin causes them to slow down significantly, making them easier to study.

How small is a nanometer? Strictly speaking, it's a billionth of a meter. To put things in perspective, comparing a nanometer to a meter is about the same as comparing a marble to the size of the earth. Weckert, a fellow at Canberra's Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, says the reason ethical issues arise is that scientists and the general public are struggling to understand both the benefits and the risks of nanotechnology.

That is an extraordinary achievement for a spiky ball of genetic material coated in fatty chemicals called lipids, and which measures 80 billionths of a metre in diameter. Humanity has been brought low by a very humble assailant.