SAFENANO Community

From 2020 Science:I’m looking at an electron microscope image of a carbon nanotube - as I cannot show it here, you’ll have to imagine it.  It shows a long, straight, multi-walled carbon nanotube, around 100 nanometers wide and 10 micrometers long.  There is nothing particularly unusual about this.  What is unusual is that the ...

  November saw the publication of a commentary in Nature Nanotech bearing the title “The US must help set international standards for nanotechnology” (here). As the title suggests, the document was an exhortation for the US to take an active role in the development of standards, particularly through the International Standards Organisation ...

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 renewed.  A strong proponent of safe nanotechnology, it was Dr. Howard’s vision and impetus ...

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 from sources that include cars, incinerators and fires; we have been since ...

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 similar research documents coming from other organizations, NIOSH has a clear ...