Scientists Just Created a Pasta So Tiny You Can't See It With the Naked Eye

It's already scientifically proven that eating pasta can positively impact your mood. But now, researchers say a very special kind of pasta may be able to help physically heal you, too.

In late 2024, researchers published the recipe for "nanopasta," the world's thinnest spaghetti, aka nanofibers, that could be used one day to bandage wounds.

"As one of the most abundant natural polymers, starch has attracted interest across many applications, from biofuels to cosmetics to papermaking," the researchers wrote in the new paper in the journal Nanoscale Advances. "Beyond these additive/precursor uses, the assembly of starch into bulk materials holds promise, notably as nanofiber membranes which may be used for nanofiltration, carbonized supercapacitor electrodes, or a host of biomedical applications."

Here's what you need to know about nanopasta and the answer to the all-important question, "Can I eat it?"

What is nanopasta?

Nanopasta is an almost unfathomably thin strand of tungsten disulfide, with each measuring in at just 370 nanometers wide, which equates to about two hundredths the width of a human hair. It's so thin that an individual strand is invisible to the naked eye. In fact, it's even challenging for a standard microscope to see, which is why you'd need an electron microscope to discern each strand. It's made with a mixture of formic acid and flour, almost like regular pasta is with water and flour, only, rather than kneading it and cutting by hand, the authors explained, they used an electrospinning technique to thread the flour through the top of a needle with an electric charge.

Related: 48 Pasta Ideas for All Seasons

"To make spaghetti, you push a mixture of water and flour through metal holes," researcher Adam Clancy shared with SciNews. "In our study, we did the same, except we pulled our flour mixture through with an electrical charge. It's literally spaghetti but much smaller."

So, why use flour? As Clancy added, "Starch is a promising material to use as it is abundant and renewable — it is the second largest source of biomass on Earth, behind cellulose — and it is biodegradable, meaning it can be broken down in the body."

Where the science of nanopasta goes from here

According to researcher Beatrice Britton, the nanofibers made from starch are promising for the field of medicine as they "could be used in bandages to aid wound healing, as scaffolding for bone regeneration and for drug delivery." However, Britton noted that because the fibers rely on starch that is extracted from plant cells and purified, it requires a great deal of energy. "A more environmentally friendly method is to create nanofibers directly from a starch-rich ingredient like flour, which is the basis for pasta," Britton added.

Greg Ziegler, a food scientist from Pennsylvania State University, who also studies starch nanofibers but was not a part of this study, also noted to Scientific American that these nanofibers could make a great contender for scaffolding for cultured meat in the future as they have the “proper viscosity for spinning."

So, can I eat it?

In short, maybe, but you probably wouldn't want to.

Still, that didn't stop Clancy from giving it a little nibble. “I know you’re not meant to self-experiment, but I’d made the world’s smallest pasta,” Clancy told Scientific American. “I couldn’t resist.” 

Read the original article on Food & Wine