"For Science, Nanotech Poses Big Unknowns"
Fantastic article. I've tried to capture the major points in the excerpts below. But really, do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.
Excerpts:
The technology, in which scientists manufacture things less than 1,000th the width of a human hair, promises smaller computers, stronger and lighter materials, even "nanobots" able to cruise through people's blood vessels to treat diseases. ...
But studies have also shown that nanoparticles can act as poisons in the environment and accumulate in animal organs. And the first two studies of the health effects of engineered nanoparticles, published in January, have documented lung damage more severe and strangely different than that caused by conventional toxic dusts. ...
No one knows how much "nanolitter" is being released into the environment, experts said, and disposal rules have yet to be crafted. ...
[The different behavior of nanoparticles] has not been integrated into the regulatory world. Take the growing number of factories in the United States making carbon nanotubes, which are made of graphite but behave very differently from ordinary graphite. ... But the data sheets that nanotube factories are filing to regulators are simply for graphite. ...
Mihail Roco, chief of nanotechnology for the National Science and Technology Council, ... also has said repeatedly that about 10 percent of the current nano budget in this country is devoted to environmental issues. But experts ... say that figure is deceiving. Almost all that money is going to study how nanotechnology may profitably be used to address existing environmental problems ... [not] how nanotech may negatively affect the environment.
Excerpts:
The technology, in which scientists manufacture things less than 1,000th the width of a human hair, promises smaller computers, stronger and lighter materials, even "nanobots" able to cruise through people's blood vessels to treat diseases. ...
But studies have also shown that nanoparticles can act as poisons in the environment and accumulate in animal organs. And the first two studies of the health effects of engineered nanoparticles, published in January, have documented lung damage more severe and strangely different than that caused by conventional toxic dusts. ...
No one knows how much "nanolitter" is being released into the environment, experts said, and disposal rules have yet to be crafted. ...
[The different behavior of nanoparticles] has not been integrated into the regulatory world. Take the growing number of factories in the United States making carbon nanotubes, which are made of graphite but behave very differently from ordinary graphite. ... But the data sheets that nanotube factories are filing to regulators are simply for graphite. ...
Mihail Roco, chief of nanotechnology for the National Science and Technology Council, ... also has said repeatedly that about 10 percent of the current nano budget in this country is devoted to environmental issues. But experts ... say that figure is deceiving. Almost all that money is going to study how nanotechnology may profitably be used to address existing environmental problems ... [not] how nanotech may negatively affect the environment.
// 2/02/2004 
