Selected article

A ballpoint pen (also eponymously known in British English and Australian English as a biro and pronounced /ˈbaɪroʊ/ bye-roe in Britain and Australia but sometimes /ˈbiːroʊ/ bee-roh" elsewhere, named after its credited, though contested, inventor László Bíró), is a modern writing instrument. A ballpoint pen has an internal chamber filled with a viscous ink that is dispensed at the tip during use by the rolling action of a small metal sphere (0.7 mm to 1.2 mm in diameter) of brass, steel or tungsten carbide The ink dries almost immediately after contact with paper. Inexpensive, reliable and maintenance-free, the ballpoint has replaced the fountain pen as the most popular tool for everyday writing.

The manufacture of economical, reliable ballpoint pens resulted from a combination of experimentation, modern chemistry, and the precision manufacturing capabilities of 20th century technology. Many patents worldwide are testaments to failed attempts to make these pens commercially viable and widely available. The ballpoint pen went through several failures in design throughout its early.

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Selected picture

Credit: Cmmmm

The colonization of the Moon is the proposed establishment of permanent human communities on the Moon. Science fiction writers and advocates of space exploration have seen settlement of the Moon as a logical step in the expansion of humanity beyond the Earth.

...Archive/Nominations

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News

Wikinews Science and technology portal

• November 22: Astronaut's baby born 200 miles below him
• November 22: 2010 Sakurai Prize awarded for 1964 Higgs Boson theory work
• November 21: Large Hadron Collider restarted
• November 19: Mobile operator Orange bills French doctor €160,000 for one month of Internet use
• November 18: Russia may delay launch of "Angara" rocket due to funding cuts
• November 17: Egypt registers first domain name in Arabic
• November 14: NASA mission finds water on the Moon
• November 12: Scientists find key human language gene
• November 10: Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian academician and physicist, dies at age 94
• November 9: Former Formula 1 designer unveils new electric car

Did you know...

• ... that both the Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser design ideas descended from the Mosaic web browser?

• ... that a coherer, hot wire barretter, electrolytic detector, cat's whisker and vacuum tube were all types of radio detectors?

• ... that in 2008 Hewlett-Packard created a prototype of the theoretical fourth and last passive circuit element, the memristor, that may one day revolutionize electronics, although the theory was devised in 1971?

• ... that a mercury arc rectifier converts alternating current to direct current by means of an electric arc through mercury vapor?

• ... that only one of the 266 1076 Class steam locomotives built for the Great Western Railway was named, and the rest had only numbers?

• ... that the six Charles Tayleur locomotives ordered by Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Great Western Railway were unsuccessful?

• ... that the intensity of a tropical cyclone (pictured) is usually determined by the Dvorak technique using only visible and infrared satellite images?

• ... that the technique of double-balloon enteroscopy allows any position along the gastrointestinal tract to be visualized in real-time?

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Technology timelines

Topics   (all)

Glossaries   (all)

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(Alternative terms for free software • Computer • Fisheries • Fuel cell terms • Internet • Legal terms • Object-oriented programming • Unified Modeling Language) • Firefighting (Equipment • Wildland fires) • Library and information science • Machine vision • Metalworking terminology • Mill machinery • Nautical • Telephony • Textile manufacturing • Transport (Aviation, aerospace, and aeronautics • Automotive design • Rail (Passenger rail (NZ railfan • UK railfan • U.S. railfan) • Woodworking (Joinery) • Winemaking

Related portals   (all)

Technology and applied sciences

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Transport

Aviation • Cars (Australian, Japanese) • Bicycles/Cycling • London transport • Nautical • Roads (U.S. Roads) • Spaceflight (Human spaceflight) • Trains (Rapid transit, UK Railways, UK Trams) • UK Waterways

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