X-ray technology--first progress in a century

A new stationary X-ray device based on carbon nanotubes has scientists in North Carolina excited. If it works as expected--getting images from multiple angles without mechanical motion--scanners can be made cheaper, use less electricity and produce higher-resolution images. They'll also be smaller and faster. The device, which works by emitting a scanning X-ray beam made up of multiple smaller beams, is the first significant improvement in X-ray technology in a hundred years.

Discovered about a decade ago, "carbon nanotubes" are tiny bits of carbon that are very strong tubular structures formed from a single layer of carbon atoms and are only about a billionth of a meter in diameter.

Read more about these new miraculous building blocks of the universe.