Meet The World's Thinnest Spaghetti

For many years, people have considered angel hair the world's thinnest pasta shape. However, as word started to travel about a highly rare shape hailing from a tiny, isolated town in Sardinia, su filindeu was awarded the title.

Fast-forward a few years to November 2024, and a press release from the University College London (UCL) blew everything we thought we knew about thin pasta out of the water.

UCL's tiny electrospun strands of starch are said to be 1000 times thinner than su filindeu and 200 times thinner than human hair. At around 372 nanometres, researchers also explained that the strands are narrower than some wavelengths of light.

Electrospinning is the name of the technology that the researchers used to create such unfathomably thin pieces of pasta. Rather than being forced through a die like regular spaghetti, these strands were pulled through the eye of a needle using an electric charge.

You won't find this "nano pasta" for sale in your local Tesco any time soon as the strands are not designed to be eaten. You wouldn't be able to see them properly anyway, even using a regular microscope. If you were to try to cook them, they would dissolve within a microsecond, and you don't want to ingest the formic acid used in their production.

So, if it's not for eating, what's its point? Researchers believe it could one day be used to treat wounds, thanks to its porous structure, which allows moisture in while keeping bacteria out. It could even be used as a scaffolding to help regenerate tissue and bones; it could also be an effective carrier for drug delivery.