SAFENANO Community

In the wake of a new study linking “nanotechnology” to two deaths and five additional cases of lung disease, the emerging technology of the ultra-small could be in for a rough ride.  Yet the real risk is that in the rush to use or even abuse the findings, the science and it’s true relevance are overlooked. It’s never good news when a ...

Into the babble of conflicting and confusing terms surrounding nanotechnology, let me introduce another one: “wysinwig nanoparticles”—what-you-see-is-NOT-what-you-get nanoparticles.  It describes particles that have an annoying habit of revealing their true identity only after they have been painstakingly measured, monitored and ...

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 technologies—including information tech, biotech, and nanotech—lead to a similar revolution ...

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 out “nano” as something special?  Yet occasionally a piece of work ...

''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 drugs, perhaps its time to rethink how we talk about the myriad diverse technologies ...

(Added Oct 24 2008: This article is also available at 2020science.org) 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 edge ...

What determines your view of nanotechnology—the message, or the messenger?  Most of us would like to think it is the message that governs our internal risk-benefit analysis.  But research published this week suggests other factors may be at work.Dan Kahan at Yale Law School and his colleagues are shaking up our ideas on effective ...

The popular computer game “SimLife” allows users to create and manipulate virtual people.  But what are the chances of us one day being able to do the same with real organisms: building new life-forms out of basic chemicals, so “SimLife” becomes “SynLife”?This week’s announcement by J. Craig Venter’s team (and the associated paper in Science) ...

This week, BSI (the national standards body of the U.K.) published what is perhaps the most practical guide to working safely with engineered nanomaterials to date.“Nanotechnologies – Part 2: Guide to safe handling and disposal of manufactured nanomaterials” (aka PD 6699-2:2007) is one of BSI’s “nano-nine”: nine nanotechnology documents either ...

What do Alzheimers and body armour have in common?  The answer could lie in the structures formed when proteins self-assemble at the nanoscale.  At the end of last year, The Daily Telegraph Science Editor Roger Highfield wrote in an article:“The protein linked with Alzheimer's disease has inspired the design of ''nanoyarns'' that could ...