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Nanotechnology: Nanoscale Particles A Health Hazard?
securitas writes "Before you start dreaming of all the benefits nanotechnology will bring you, think about the health hazards. Over two dozen studies that date back to 1984 indicate that nanoscale materials are toxic because their size allows them to be easily ingested, inhaled or absorbed through the skin. Proponents of nanotech dismiss the meta-study as nonsense, while the authors suggest a moratorium on nanotech development until further health research is completed." The paper (726 kB PDF) that prompted this article is available.
we were suposed to inhale/ingest nano machines. thats how they get in our bodies to help us.
Beer Die is the game of champions Learning To walk my own path.
It's not as if this were being put out by a group which, oh, say, was interested in opposing the rapid development of Nanotech...
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
"Don't give research grants to study dangerous nanotechnology, give the grants to me and I will conduct a study into why many more health studies are required to determine the risk."
Stop all research, bleh. Nano stuff isn't dangerous like gen-enged germs (unless you believe in the grey goo catastrophe), it is dangerous like many other fine particles, like asbestos and such. It warrants careful handling, not banning.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Since when have we EVER stopped research in a scientific field to check out health concerns first?
Give me a break...
For the record, I think we need to have a clear understanding of the basics in any specific field before we can even think about doing research on environmental and health issues. Imagine trying to determine the effect of internal combustion engine on the environment before you've actually built one. Kinda hard, no?
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Look, merely because all of the potential positive effects of nanotechnology are being extolled by supporters doesn't mean that micro scale objects pose no health threats. Considering the emphasis that the EPA and environmental organizations are putting on the health hazards of particulate matter, it's a good idea to examine the potential problems here. Some might argue that nanotech particles would be too small to pose a significant threat, but something that small could easily work it's way into structures in the human body previously accessible only by other types of cells. I don't know about you, but I shudder to think of the potential damage that could be done to the air sacs in lungs just from breathing in "clouds" of these structures, even if benign. I'm not saying that nanotech is bad; just that thinking of it as totally benign is foolish.
you silly little sack of bitchtits.....karma whoring little bitch....
FUCK OFF AND DIE
Also, it wasn't pubilshed in a peer-reviewed forum - generally a good indication of poor science.
Quack!Quack!.....QUACK!!
Particles smaller than 10 mm in diameter can be inhaled , and particals smaller than 2.5 mm in diameter can be inhaled into the lungs. Ultra Fine Particles (UFP) are smaller than 0.1 mm in diameter and they have been linked with respiratory problems such as asthma.
The fine particals are the main problem with diesel engines.
Independence? That's middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. G.B Shaw
Nanotechnology is key to the development of 21st century industry much as the transistor was to the latte rhalf of the 20th century. According to the paper, BASF is working on a toothpaste that has enamel built into it. Those worrying about having hydroxyapetite crystals enter the body don't seem to worry about the mercury in fillings potentially causing Minamata (methyl mercury ==> degenerative brain) disease. Nanocrystals are already being employed for medical research, one lab at Vanderbilt is already exploring their potential use as a tracking system for neurological tumors and disease since they can circumvent the blood-brain barrier.
New polymers and materials are also unlikely to enter commercial use if they disintegrate so quickly that inhaling notable quantities becomes a problem. If they're flaking off in the air they'd as likely disintegrate on cantact with water. Buckyballs could be a potential health threat but does that stop people from trying to build star ladders / space elevators out of their derivative materials? Of course not. Look at the benefits from material science over the last decade just using alloys derived from Cold War technology of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. We stand at the threshold of potential miracles in medicine (implants that don't get rejected), computing (micronized computers...imagine if today's Game Boy became tommorow's ENIAC), and many other fields.
Of course there will be toxic derivatives of some new materials, after all LSD was discovered by people looking for cold medicines and heroin was discovered when Bayer wanted a more potent pain reliever than morphine. Care should be taken not to let certain materials into the environment, but that can be done by covered, sealed hoods with gloves or mabe this is an incentive to develop better filtering systems (could work against biochem agents too...). Keep the research going and just remember to apply common sense when working with dangerous chemicals.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
True, it would be easy to ingest (or otherwise innoculate yourself with) nanothings. However, the one saving grace could be that they wouldn't neccesarily self-replicate. So, however little you ingest is "all" you need to worry about. If a few nanowidets "escaped" from the lab and infected someone in the general population, there shouldn't be as urgent of a threat of it spreading, unlike viruses or bacteria.
:)
Of course, the threat that makes me shudder is the idea of weaponizing nanotech. Although it wouldn't necessarily be a weapon of mass destruction, it would certainly have some frightening capabilities... like being able to control just when the actual "attack" on your body took place, how much damage was done, etc. But this was all addressed in an X-Files episode, so there's nothing more to be said.
Until you can control it, don't deploy it.
Who said anything about deploying?
What the article suggests is that we shouldn't even do any research on nano-scale machines until we've evaluated the alleged health risks. Which is a load of bunk.
Think about it - if people had suggested this a couple hundred years ago then it's unlikely we would've developed electric power (yes, I know - studies on electricity date back millenia, but it wasn't until the 1800s that a vast amount of research was done on it and we started really harnessing its capabilities). Do you have any idea what happens to the human body when exposed to more than a few milliamps of electrical power?
Do the research, figure out how to make these things work for us... it's just that health concerns are another part of the research - which is pretty much standard nowadays anyway.
This is insightful?
I've got a list of dangerous things too. How about:
Fire
Rocks
Sharp sticks
Screw drivers
Cars
Planes
Rocks dropped from planes
etc.
etc.
etc.
Because something has the potential to be dangerous is not a valid argument for not researching it. If that argument was applied 10,000 years ago we'd still be getting eaten by wolves and mauled by buffalo.
If you think nuclear energy is dangerous do some research into the number of deaths related to the burning of fossil fuels, the mining of coal, the extraction and transportation of oil & gas. Its all dangerous.
"DDT is perfectly safe"(films in the '50s show kids, sitting at picnic tables, getting fogged with DDT, grinning ear to ear. DDT is later shown to cause all manner of health problems)
"PCBs won't cause widescale pollution" (PCBs found to migrate in wildlife half-way across the globe from a single source)
"Nuclear power is completely safe."(3-mile island, Chernobyl, and countless accidents of one kind or another at US facilities, not to mention millions of tons of deadly radioactive waste that we still haven't figured out what to do with. Don't even get me started on the secretive testing they did on mental institution patients.)
"MBTE is a great way to meet emissions goals!"(too bad it pollutes the water table faster than you can say 'aquifer', and is a known carcinogen. Next time you fill up, look for that nice little "this gas may contain MTBE" sticker. Do a search on "MTBE health hazards" on google some time. That electric car looking better all of the sudden?)
"Asbestos is a great material to use in brake pads, clutches, fire curtains in theaters, insultation on pipes..." (asbestos is now 100% proven to cause lung cancer)
"Lobotomies are a great way to cure mental illness"
Oh, and the greatest of them all, "Cigarettes don't cause cancer." Let's throw in alcohol, too, since both are poisons(and, as a whole, people can't seem to handle alcohol responsibly- I'd be surprised if the death count from alcohol-related deaths isn't higher than cigarettes.)
That's just a small sampling of some of the gems that have come from both the scientific community and industry, often both. Why should we trust them now? These days, you should be forced to prove your product is safe, since time after time scientists and industry have proven themselves incapable of putting safety in front of "progress" and financial interests.
Please help metamoderate.
Inhaling sharp-edged little particles has never been good for your health. Doesn't matter if they're manufactured or not. Take silicosis, for example.
We've got a huge diatomaceous earth plant in the next town over, and even though it's amorphous silica, I've heard you can still get some lung problems from breathing a lot of it for long enough.
All you really need for for is to supply fuel to build ADP back to ATP, which is in turn broken down to provide energy for the cells of the body. Food is merely a way of carrying the energy of those tasty chemical bonds to be converted to energy for the body.
Since we're speaking purely hypothetically of this story, perhaps the nanobots would create something alone the lines of a photochemical cell membrane to convert UV and visible light radiation to usable energy. (kinda like photosynthesis) *shrug* It's fiction, there's always a deus ex machina if you want there to be.
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> All technology comes with consequences. We usually accept these risks freely.
Translation: we usually don't bother to assess these risks until we've already deployed the technology.
> The only types of nanomachines that are dangerous are those that perform only a minimal
> amount of precautions as to what specific things they can operate on.
Translation: I am incapible of coming up with any possible risks from other kinds of nanomachines in 15 seconds of thought, so clearly there aren't any.
Translation of the entire post: Listen to me! I didn't read the article!
Basically, if you have a bunch of really tiny stuff and you breathe it in, it doesn't matter what function it's performing at the time... it can screw up your lungs. If you have a bunch of pieces of a defunct nanomachine wandering around in your bloodstream, it can cause truly entertaining effects in a truly entertaining variety of places. If you absorb interestingly coherant nanomachine parts through your skin, interesting things can happen.
Parallels have already been drawn to asbestos and fibreglass.
And here you are, saying that the only kind of nanomachine that is at all dangerous is a self-replicating one. Oh, wait, maybe that's the only thing that Ben Bova thought were dangerous... he's a sci-fi writer, he must be right, huh?
Well, there's always Neil Stephenson... remember the 'toner' in one of his books? How much good d'ya suppose that does your lungs?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
yes but your under the assumption that all man made nano-particals are somehow distinct from natural ones how do you know that our defensive systems wont block them, that aside you seem to be under the assumption that this paper has any validity, show me the full results and the testing procedures, explain to me why this was dumped into the popular media and not peer reviewed. This is the same kinda poor science society backed during the whole cell phone paranoia.
-troy
Not according to this article by the folks at HowStuffWorks.com. The active ingredient is not zinc but rather aluminum compounds, which stimulate skin cells to absorb water and thus close the sweat pores. Basically it is a trick of osmosis, and closes rather than clogs the pores.
Zinc compounds tend to be pretty caustic stuff, but they are used in some dermatological treatments. One is dandruff shampoo. However, antiperspirant is not one of them.
Do the research, figure out how to make these things work for us...it's just that health concerns are another part of the research -which is pretty much standard nowadays anyway.
...) rather than the vendor having to prove a product is safe. Big business versus the public. Guess who wins.
Except that the chemical companies market anything they want, and only after a product is established can the victims attempt to remove a harmful or dangerous product. The victims have to prove a product is harmful (DDT, thalidomide, cigarettes,
How many decades have the tobacco companies killed people with their lies? But hey, don't worry, it's OK, 'cus they're making money; helping the economy.
The standard should be prove it's safe before you can market it, but it's not because,
America has the best politicians money can buy...
Heisenberg may have been here.