So what's your Nano IQ ranking?

0-3 correct answers: Nano Novice

4-6 correct answers: Nano Nerd

7-10 correct answers: Nano Genius

From the Greek word nanos or the Latin word nanus. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. 

A pin head is about a millimeter wide. If a nanometer were as wide as a pinhead, then a meter would have to be a billion times bigger or a billion millimeters. One billion millimeters is equal to about 1,000 kilometers (or about 620 miles). The distance (traveling by road) between Washington. D.C., and Atlanta, Ga. is 632 miles. 

A hydrogen atom is about 1/10 of a nanometer wide. 

Nanoscale particles are used in some children's stuffed animals to fight bacteria, molds, and mites, lessening the chance of illness and exposure to potential allergens. Some paints are infused with nanoparticles that repel oils and water, making them resistant to staining and molds. 

Organic Light-Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) can be manufactured with woven carbon nanotubes to create large flat-panel displays, such as for mobile phones, that are brighter, more energy efficient, and less expensive. 

And some computer hard drives have read heads (the stylus that reads magnetic bits) made with thin films only 1.5 nanometers thick. 

The newton (named after physics great Isaac Newton) is the internationally accepted unit for measuring force. One newton is about equal to the force needed to hold a dollars' worth of nickels or (fittingly) the force required to hold a good-sized apple against the force of Earth's gravity. A nanonewton is a billionth of a newton. 

Nanopores are tiny holes or openings that exist in certain proteins, including some of those found on the outsides of living cells. These tiny holes allow small ions, or charged particles, to move in and out of cells. Nanopores enable neighboring nerve cells to communicate with one another, and they do many other important things. Passing DNA molecules through nanopores may someday allow scientists to decode DNA's genetic information faster than before, for example to learn the identity of a crime suspect more quickly. 

The carbon atom is one of the basic building blocks of living things. It's also the building block of graphite (found in pencils) and diamonds (found in expensive jewelry stores). If you arrange carbon atoms in a sheet and roll it up tightly to form a tube just nanometers wide, you get a carbon nanotube. Carbon nanotubes are one of the strongest materials known—about 100 times stronger than steel but six times lighter. Bike frames made using carbon nanotubes are significantly lighter yet much stronger than previously used frames. Bikes using carbon nanotubes in their frames have been entered in the long-distance bike race, the Tour de France. 

The soccer nanobots (nanoscale robots) that competed at MST's three "nanosoccer" competitions (2007-2009) operated under an optical microscope, were controlled by remote electronics using visual feedback and were viewed on a monitor. While they are a few tens of micrometers to a few hundred micrometers long, the robots were considered "nanoscale" because their masses range from a few nanograms to a few hundred nanograms. The nanosoccer competition tested the nanobots in three events: a 2-millimeter dash in which each nanobot sought the best time for a goal-to-goal sprint across the playing field; a slalom drill where the path between goals was blocked by "defenders" (polymer posts); and a drill that required robots to -dribble" as many "nanoballs" (microdisks with the diameter of a human hair) as possible into the goal within a 3-minute period. 

Self-assembled monolayers are made of atoms or molecules that attach to specific surfaces in very predictable, uniform ways. For example, alkyl thiol molecules self-assemble on gold surfaces into a single molecular layer. Alkyl thiol molecules act like a ball and chain. One end of the molecule (the ball) attaches firmly to gold surfaces while the hydrocarbon "chain" floats above it. At the end of the chain, a variety of different chemical groups or "locks" can be attached. As a result, these surfaces may make good surfaces for chemical or biological sensors. 

As electronic devices shrink to the nanoscale, scientists are pursuing new ways to store and manipulate information. Electrons, like photons, have one of two different spins, up or down. When a device uses the flow of electrons to operate, we call it an electronic device. When a device uses the pattern of electron spins to operate, it is a "spintronic" device.