Article: Smallest ever force measurement reported.(force of auto-newton measured)(Brief Article)

Imagine a force barely strong enough to lift a protein molecule, and far too weak to budge a blood cell. Until now forces this small have been virtually undetectable. But scientists from Stanford University and IBM's Almaden Research Center report that they have successfully measured forces of such an infinitesimal magnitude. The measurements of the "auto-newton" forces (a newton is about one-fifth of a pound) were made using a microscopic cantilever being developed for a new instrument called a magnetic resonance force microscope (MRFM). The instrument combines the scanning tunneling microscope's ability to image ...

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