On nanotechnology, experts see more risks than public

Source: afp



On nanotechnology, experts see more risks than public

by Marlowe Hood Sun Nov 25, 1:38 PM ET

PARIS (AFP) - In a surprising reversal of roles, nanotechnology scientists outrival the general public in seeing a cause for concern in some aspects of their work, according to a study published Sunday.

Nanotechnology -- the science of making things measured in units 10,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair -- holds spectacular promise in virtually every sector.

Hundreds of consumer products already contain nano materials, most of which are cosmetics, sunscreens and cleaning products with microscopic particles.

But this is the only first step in what promoters of nano say is a revolution whose impact will be outsized compared to the technology's tiny scale.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071125/tc_afp/sciencehealthtechnologynanotechnologyrisks_071125182934;_ylt=AmNvxJmroP3STtwv5.apJE.s0NUE

just wait and see. We've already started with GM corn, etc.

such an awful use of genetics.

Nanotech is going to be a huge political and religious issue in about 50 years. I hope I'm around long enough to at least get a glimpse of what it will mean for the future of humanity.

http://www.nrdc.org/onearth/07fal/nano1.asp

by Robin Marantz Henig

Nanotechnology, fast becoming a three-trillion-dollar industry, is about to revolutionize our world. Unfortunately, hardly anyone is stopping to ask whether it's safe.

For an industry that trades in the very, very small, projections about the potential scope of nanotechnology are gigantic. Estimates are that the industry will grow at a staggering pace in its first decade, reaching close to $3 trillion globally by 2014. The National Nanotechnology Initiative, created by President Bill Clinton in 2000, has called it "the next industrial revolution." Enthusiasts say that nanotechnology may someday enable scientists to build objects from the atom up, leading to entirely new replacement parts for failing bodies and minds. It may enable engineers to make things that never existed before, creating nanosize "carpenters" that can be programmed to construct anything, atom by atom -- including themselves. Or it may make things disappear, with nanowires that get draped around an object in a way that makes the whole package invisible to the naked eye.

As difficult as it is to comprehend how huge is the promise of nanotechnology, it's just as hard to wrap your head around just how tiny "nano" is. A nanometer is defined as one billionth of a meter, but what does that mean? The analogies are mind-boggling but not necessarily enlightening. Hearing how small things are when you're working at the nano level doesn't help you visualize anything, exactly; all it does is make you sit back and say, "Wow." If you think of a meter as the earth, goes one analogy, then a nanometer would be a marble. If you think of a meter as the distance from the earth to the sun, then a nanometer would be the length of a football field. A nanometer is one hundred-thousandth the width of a human hair. Or it is, in a particularly kinetic description, the length that a man's beard will grow in the time it takes him to lift a razor to his face.

"Things get complex down there, in terms of the physics and the chemistry," says Andrew Maynard, chief science adviser for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, established in 2005 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Pew Charitable Trust. "When you have small blocks of stuff, they behave differently than when you have large blocks of stuff."

At the nano level, some compounds shift from inert to active, from electrical insulators to conductors, from fragile to tough. They can become stronger, lighter, more resilient. These transformed properties are what account for the infinite potential applications of nanoparticles, defined as anything less than about 100 nanometers in diameter.

The field is a textbook example of exponential growth. According to Lux Research, an emerging-technologies research and advisory firm based in New York that has tracked the industry since 2001, the total value of all products worldwide that incorporated nanotechnology was $13 billion in 2004. That figure grew to $32 billion in 2005 and to $50 billion in 2006, and Lux Research projects it will reach $2.6 trillion by 2014.

It's worth it in that respect.

The trick is to keep nanotech from being used by people who want to do harm. Unfortunately that's probably not possible. I don't know for sure, but maybe taggents could be included in the raw materials?

I think I heard that buckyballs are chemically poisonous (but I may be remembering the story wrong).

This comes as no surprise. My introduction to the whole techology was Neil Stephenson's "The Diamond Age." It paints a vision of the future that is both frightening and hopeful at the same time.

The potential of nanotechnology is mind-boggling.

But we're right to be wary of it.

I've got handlebars on my bike that contain nanotubes. And they're pretty cool bars.

But this is pretty disturbing.

Here's what I get from this. Every step we take away from nature is a curse. And this is precisely why I've always said that we cannot engineer our way out of our situation. And that is not an insignificant statement. It essentially boils down to- no pain, no gain. We're expecting something easily. And life doesn't work that way. Well, it does. But only if you work WITH it. As in, gardening. And not a hell of a lot more.

The luddites can go romanticizing about the "noble savage" and live in their caves or their grass huts, us transhumanists will be using technology to make us live forever and fix the environment to boot.

I don't have a good answer. But I know that we can't "fix" anything that has to serve this size of a population on limited resources that we have. Or rather, had.

I wouldn't be a mechanical engineer if I hadn't had a great interest in how things work. But after studying how things work for a lifetime, I can see what actually does and doesn't work. Right now is a transitional period. And it's not working.

I'm presently looking at going off the grid. And it's just not feasible with the kind of life we live. Not grid-tied. Off grid. And it's ugly. Two tons of lead acid batteries. Shoot, a pc can take as much as a half a kilowatt to keep running. Add in a refrigerator, a microwave, a coffee maker, hot water, lights, etc., and you've got to have your own monster of a power generating facility.

I see how to engineer our way out of it. But I don't see how to do it and keep the planet alive.

We should not be too proud of our victories over nature. For every victory, nature takes revenge.

That is what the technophobes don't understand. I say bring on the nanotech revolution!