All Things Great . . . Are Small
For Northeastern's nanotech researchers, working across a raft of disciplines, big innovations spring from teensy-tiny packages

By Karen Feldscher
Illustrations by Mark Steele

It is, says political science professor Christopher Bosso, the study of things that are "freakingly small."

Nontechies everywhere use similarly inexact yet awed language when talking about the strange new realm of nanotechnology, which focuses on particles that are so minute, so beyond the realm of the senses, that the work itself can be tough to comprehend.

Yet this young field is science's next big thing. Successfully unlocking the mysteries of smaller-than-small building blocks could revolutionize everything from fighting cancer, to miniaturizing computers, to blocking terrorism.

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