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Front Page News
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A terse statement from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today [ available here. PDF, 16 KB ] confirmed that Dr. John Howard’s tenure as director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health ( NIOSH ) will not be...
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Last December I highlighted the case of Benny the Bear—a soft toy using nano-silver to give it antimicrobial properties ( Benny the Bear, and the case of the disappearing nanoparticles ). It appeared at the time that the manufacturer was being rather...
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Painted metal roofs are cheap, convenient, and usually very durable. But over the past two years, a rash of accelerated ageing has blighted pre-painted steel roofing in Australia. And intriguingly the ageing—which affects the coating—seems to be localized...
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Read Thomas L. Friedman’s “The World is Flat” or Neal Stephenson’s “Cryptonomicon”, and you get a glimpse into how the hacker culture that emerged at the tail end of the twentieth century revolutionized the digital world. Will a confluence of emerging...
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It seems that significant nanoparticle risk studies are just like London buses, you wait ages for one to arrive and then two come along together. Last month we had the Poland et al. study concerning the hazardous nature of MWCNT. This highly reported...
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Emulated around the world, the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) has set the pace for government-driven nanotechnology research and development. Yet as the science and technology of working at the nanoscale mature, the challenges of transforming...
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Why nano? Why care? For non-nanotech initiates, an obsession with nanotechnology must sometimes seem a bizarre occupation of the sad and lonely. And even within the nanotechnology community, who hasn’t had occasional doubts over the legitimacy of singling...
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Mix carbon nanotubes and asbestos together (metaphorically) and you get an explosive mix—at least if news coverage of the latest publication coming out of Professor Ken Donaldson’s team is anything to go by. The research— published on-line today in Nature...
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"Nanotechnology" as an overarching concept is great for sweeping statements and sound bites, but falls short when it comes to real-world decision-making. As nanoscale technologies are increasingly used in everything from antimicrobial socks to anti-cancer...
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My worst nightmare—I’m sitting at the back of a small plane (by the bathroom), my knees up round my ears (because someone else with a bigger case got to the overhead storage before me), and a small child screaming its head off two rows down. But unlike...
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The author Neal Stephenson got it wrong—at least, if this week’s nano-news is anything to go by! In his landmark 1995 novel “The Diamond Age,” Stephenson described a future built on nano-innovation. But thirteen years later, nanotechnology seems to be...
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If you want proof that nano is mainstream, just pick up the U.S. May edition of fashion magazine “Elle.” Sharing cover-space with Madonna is the latest article on nanotech and the beauty business. Elle might not be your first choice of reading for cutting...
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The most recent estimate from the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) puts nanotechnology risk research investment at $68 million for 2006 (the only year complete figures are currently available for—apparently). Yet the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies...
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Here’s a small diversion for a slow Sunday afternoon: Take sixty jellybeans and ninety cocktail sticks, and try to construct a model of a buckyball—a carbon-60 molecule. It’s tricky, but not impossible. Constructing a candy buckminster fullerene is one...
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After spending a fair bit of time ‘hibernating’ at SAFENANO HQ (well, that’s how I wish it was!), this month sees the beginning of a fairly busy period for the team, and the start of a number of very important new projects in nano HSE. The first of these...
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Read some accounts of nanotechnology risks, and you might be forgiven for concluding that a single engineered nanoparticle can kill you. Of course, a little critical thinking soon dispels this notion—we are constantly bombarded with incidental nanoparticles...
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Not a full blog entry I'm afraid, but if you need something to brighten a dull day, Michael Berger's latest entry on the Nanowerk site is a must-read. A taster: "The newly created U.S. Nanotechnology Protection Agency (NPA) announced today, April 1, 2008,...
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The small American town of Sunnyville is a town in crisis. Against a backdrop of job losses that have decimated the local community, citizens are struggling to decide whether to welcome two major nanotech-enabled industries into the town, or whether to...
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On March 18th, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke died in his home in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. A master developer and assembler of ideas, Clarke will be remembered fondly by many for igniting their enthusiasm for science, and how it might...
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The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has a plan for nanotechnology , and it’s a good one. But can they afford it? You have to hand it to NIOSH, this is an agency that actually seems to understand the word “strategy.” Unlike...
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Events over the last couple of weeks have confirmed the view that nanotechnology risk issues are moving sharply up the political agenda in the UK at least. Firstly, on the 21 st February we had a statement in the House of Commons from Ian Pearson, Minister...
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Can current approaches to doing science sustain us over the next one hundred years? An increasing reliance on technological fixes to global challenges — including nanotechnology — demands a radical rethink of how we use science in the service of society....
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Could Antarctica serve as a model for the global management of nanotechnology? Speaking at this week’s International Conference on Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in Melbourne Australia ( ICONN2008 ), Alan Hemmings [1,2] and co-author Julia Jabour [2,3]...
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After a long wait, the US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s strategy for nanotechnology-related environmental, health and safety research was finally published last week ( pdf file, 2.2 MB ). If you want to know what I think of it, I’m afraid you will...
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Reading the just-released European Commission’s recommendations on a code of conduct for responsible nanosciences and nanotechnologies research ( pdf download, 92 KB . Also see the recent SafeNano news item on the code), I cannot help wonder if the race...
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