Particles that are less than 10 micrometers and 2.5 micrometers in diameter are called PM10 and PM2.5, respectively.—Kristi Tanner, Detroit Free Press, 18 May 2024 According to Yale Medicine, the particles can be 10 micrometers, PM 10, or as small as 2.5 micrometers, PM 2.5, and the smaller one poses a lot of health risks.—Julia Gomez, USA TODAY, 15 May 2024 That’s bad news, as microplastics—fragments of plastic measuring as small as 1 micrometer, or a millionth of a meter—can pass from the bloodstream into organs throughout the body and even into fetuses, potentially raising the risk of cancer, reproductive problems, and other ills.—Jeffrey Kluger, TIME, 2 May 2024 IQAir used as its primary indicator of each country or territory’s air quality the average concentration of PM2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller, measured across cities with publicly-available data.—TIME, 19 Mar. 2024 Among the smallest life forms inhabiting both fresh and marine water, phytoplankton can measure as little as one micrometer—or one millionth of a meter.—TIME, 5 Feb. 2024 This boost in size enables two atoms held several micrometers apart — perfectly feasible in optical traps — to interact.—Philip Ball, Quanta Magazine, 25 Mar. 2024 The findings show that bottled water could contain up to 100 times more plastic particles than previously estimated, as earlier studies only accounted for microplastics, or pieces between 1 and 5,000 micrometers.—Coco Liu, Fortune Well, 10 Jan. 2024 The team start with tiny silica spheres with a diameter of about 3 micrometers, less than than the width of a human hair.—The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 27 Feb. 2024
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Word History
Etymology
Noun (1)
French micromètre, from micr- + -mètre -meter
Noun (2)
International Scientific Vocabulary micr- + meter entry 3
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