Yet another cultural bellwether, the late-night TV monologue, has reached down to the nano level. I've already told you about Dave Barry's nanomockery. Thursday night, it was Jay Leno's turn to poke some fun on "The Tonight Show." I didn't watch it, but my wife mentioned something about hearing "nano" in a punch line. So, I wrote to an old journalism colleague of mine, Daniel Kurtzman, who runs a political humor site on About.com. I knew he'd dig it up for me. So, here's the first-ever late-night TV nano joke:

"In Washington, President Bush has signed a bill to invest 3.7 billion into nanotechnology. This is the science of building electronic circuits from single atoms and single molecules. Bush said he did it to help small businesses."

Ba-dum-bum. Yeah, pretty lame.More on Howard Lovy's NanoBot.