In an amazing three-page essay I have read at least four times in an unsuccessful bid to understand "e=mc squared", Albert Einstien famously said: "You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.

Scientists have since attempted the challenge for other branches of science as these two attempts demonstrate - one relating to nanotechnology, the other to the internet.

Nanotechnology is a relatively new science involving the manipulation of materials at near atomic scales. Things at this level have very different properties.

For example carbon as graphite is quite soft, but becomes incredibly hard when packed into nanotubes - one of the big areas of study.

Others are developing gears, switches, pumps, or engines from individual atoms, that can be developed into nanorobots that could be injected into humans to carry out repairs or sent into hazardous or dangerous environments.

But how do you explain it - by using a Twinkie, according to scientist Andrew Maynard.

In a video made available on the internet Maynard uses the snack cake to "unlock the mysteries of nanotechnology".

The 25-minute travel guide to the technology shows products now on the market that use nanotechnology. He extrapolates to the future, imagining that nanotech has sparked a new industrial revolution in medicine, energy, materials, travel and electronics.

Nanotechnology is the ability to measure, see, manipulate and manufacture things usually between 1 and 100 nanometres. A nanometre is one billionth of a metre. A human hair is roughly 100,000 nanometres wide.

"Putting a nanoparticle on a Twinkie is comparable in scale to putting a Twinkie on the moon," said Maynard.

Check out the Twinkie guide to nanotech at: www.nanotechproject.org/141.

According to Lux Research, nanotechnology was incorporated into about $50 billion worth of manufactured goods in 2006.

Meanwhile computer scientists are attempting to visualise what the internet looks like and have discovered that it looks like...like....a bunch of digital dandelions.

That's the type of image formed (see photo) when a map of the internet is plotted by new mathemathical algorithms developed by computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego.

This map features Internet nodes - the dots - and linkages - the lines. While the graph is certainly pretty, it has been generated with a serious intent.

In computer speak, a node is an internet processing location, a server, where packets of information get passed along until it reaches the intended receiver.

The scientists created the graph as a means of visually demonstrating how peer-to-peer business relationships can help determine the paths that packets of information take in travelling across the Internet.

Remember, an e-mail you send to a friend across the road, may end up going around the world before arriving at his doorstep if other closer routes are saturated with traffic, or blocked.

The scientists also created the mostly random graph as a means of demonstrating techniques for producing annotated, Internet router graphs of different sizes - based on observations of Internet characteristics.

Generating these kinds of graphs is critical for a wide range of computer science research, they note.

"Defending against denial of service attacks and large-scale worm outbreaks depends on network topology," they stated in releasing the source code for use by fellow researchers.

Whatever its scientific use, the graph sure gives us an idea of what the beast looks like - a lovely flower, or an unruly weed.

Contact Ahmed at elamin.ahmed[AT]gmail.com if you have any comments.