Some engineers might build things that are bigger but these engineers created a robot measuring half a millimeter wide — less than half the width of a grain of sand, according to the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. It’s got to be the world’s smallest automaton. It looks like a very tiny crab and it walks, it twists and turns and it can jump. And, says  Northwestern University engineering professor, it took him and his team about a year and a half to build it. He says it can be used “to repair or assemble small structures or machines in industry or as surgical assistants to clear clogged arteries, to stop internal bleeding or to eliminate cancerous tumors — all in minimally invasive procedures.”

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Beware the worms

Jumping worms have invaded California much to the chagrin of gardeners, says the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC]. The California Department of Food and Agriculture says they are “True to their name, they jump and thrash immediately when handled, behaving more like a threatened snake than a worm, sometimes even breaking and shedding their tail when caught.” According to the experts at Cornell University, “Asian jumping worms are a relatively new invasive species [they can deplete soil of nutrients and damage plant roots] … but they are rapidly spreading across the United States.  They can be found in the Southeast, along the Eastern Seaboard, and in the mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and some Northwestern states.”

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Poetic license

The British poet, Edward Lear, was born on May 12, 1812. Who is Edward Lear, you ask? He is known for popularizing those “short, humorous, nonsense poem” known as limericks via a book he wrote called, A Book of Nonsense, says the Association of Mature American Citizens [AMAC].  May 12 — in case you missed it —  was National Limerick Day. Here’s one of Lear’s limericks: There was an Old Man with a beard, Who said, “It is just as I feared!—Two Owls and a Hen, four Larks and a Wren, Have all built their nests in my beard.

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