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The Issues of Nano-Safety

Posted by Hemos on from the nano-nano-nano dept.

Ineffable 27 writes "Today's New York Times has an interesting article looking at some of the emerging research into the health and safety risks of nanotech and nanomaterials." Free reg. blah blah. It's a decent article, but it's the same type of questions that groups like The Foresight Institute have been thinking about for a long long time now.

25 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Safety? Ha, who needs it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    If we had thought about wussy things like "safety" back in the 40's we wouldn't have developed the atom bomb. And that, good sirs, would be a travesty, because there would have never been any Duke Nukem Games.

  2. Disasters and benefits, oh my... by tekiegreg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A good book on the topic is "Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea" (ISBN: 0131014005). In it some of the problems of Nanotech are discussed (in addition to the benefits of course).

    IMHO though, this is just another snag in the means of progress. We develop Genetic engineering and people are suffering from allergies to Gene spliced tortillas (that was Del Taco IIRC), or for a worse idea, we develop advanced shipbuilding and watch the Titanic sink (over and over again...).

    However will Nanotech help society as whole more than it will hurt? IMHO yes. Though it truly remains to be seen whether or not a bunch of Nano-bots will destroy us all from our insides (I think that was from the book), or a bunch of clumped Nano-tubes will get in our lungs (as the article said).

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    ...in bed
  3. some other links by stonebeat.org · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here are some other links about issues with nano-tech http://www.theecologist.org/searchResults.html?arc hiveOnly=1&searchString=nanotechnology&Search=Sear ch and here is a one that talk abouts issues with brain implants to boost intelligence.

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    Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
  4. We can hope by nizo · · Score: 3, Funny

    May a thousand nanobots attack the cells of anyone posting a "welcome our new nanobot overlord" post.

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    I Am My Own Worst Enemy
  5. Viruses and playing God by Dancin_Santa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Some would say that viruses are God's nanotech. Small, self-replicating, non-living, and very very potent. The damage that a virus can do to an ecosystem depends on its programming, but even the most mild of viruses can cause serious reactions in hosts.

    I'm not sure that we have come to the point of understanding where we can control nanobots. If the biggest software company in the world can't put out a bug free software package, how can we expect that a handful of scientists to put together what is in effect a man-made virus. It would be a sad day if one of these (excuse the pun) bugs were released and some error was caught too late.

    1. Re:Viruses and playing God by DG · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You said a magic phrase there: "self-replicating"

      It is unlikely that any nanobots we'll be dealing with in the forseeable future will be self-replicating. In fact, I think the opposite problem - how to keep the damn things functional long enough to do their job - will be the more prevelent one.

      As such, the major issue facing nanobots is more likely to be analogous to the "space junk" problem (what do you do about large numbers of "dead" nanobots) than to be a "gray goo" or "runaway virus" problem.

      DG

      --
      Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
  6. Yet another article by Scalli0n · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a link to the page, no login required:

    LINK!

    Sig & Below

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    Sig & Below
    Yuck Fou
  7. One of my nanotech dreams. by dark-br · · Score: 4, Funny

    I imagined from the moment I heard of nanotech, that we could have devices implanted in ourselves that, when we're in the sun, could bring chlorophyll to the surface of our skins and create food from it. That way we can all use up CO2 from the atmosphere to offset the CO2 emissions of industry, and help industry along all the more!

    We get the benefits of industry, with free food, and a way to combat one of the current downfalls of industry!

    My other nanotech dream is that nanobots in my body could change me into a lesbian and I could go have hot lesbian sex each night, but I don't mention that one much

  8. Stephenson's the Diamond age by denubis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To me, the most interesting part of any given technology are the cultural implications, especially as how with every advance in technology, our options become more manifest and manifold. (And if that last sentence didn't make sense, blame my cold.)

    Stephenson's Diamond Age is a fascinating examination of this. Now, given that the book was written on a victorian framework (which shapes what issues are pondered) it is still an enjoyable read, and an even more enjoyable thought experiment into nanotech.

    When people have the ability to build anything they want from the atom up, the only thing constraining us will be those constraints that our society dictates. (Everything else is merely requires sufficently talented engineers.) Unfortunatly, the dangerous aspects of nanotech also are only constrained by our society.

    Worries about grey-goo scenarios and DNA plagues shouldn't stop us from researching nanotech -- if only for the reason that solutions to these problems can only be found through nanotechnological means.

    Anyways, I digress -- for a fascinating study of nanotech, read the Diamond Age.

    1. Re:Stephenson's the Diamond age by kirkjobsluder · · Score: 3, Interesting

      When people have the ability to build anything they want from the atom up, the only thing constraining us will be those constraints that our society dictates. (Everything else is merely requires sufficently talented engineers.) Unfortunatly, the dangerous aspects of nanotech also are only constrained by our society.When people have the ability to build anything they want from the atom up, the only thing constraining us will be those constraints that our society dictates. (Everything else is merely requires sufficently talented engineers.) Unfortunatly, the dangerous aspects of nanotech also are only constrained by our society.

      Nanobots in the form of bacteria, have been on the Earth for billions of years. The extensive history of activity at this scale deflates both the claims of grey goo pessimists and the claims of boundless possibility constrained only by society. Regardless of the talent of engineers, physics and chemestry pose some very hard constraints on what is possible.

  9. Re:Safety? by dark-br · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I hope nanotech doesn't eventuate for at least another century. The regulations to ensure it doesn't get out of control aren't in place and I don't see anyone beginning to care much about this for a long time. Read information here. When people are injured by normal technology, they are just injured or killed and the rest of the world moves on. When people will be injured by nanotech, the changes will be small perhaps undetectable even, but could involve controlled changes to things as basic to us as humans as our DNA, the food we eat, and our brain systems Government rewiring of our brains some day? Can't be too far in the future.

  10. Nanotechology disposal by burgburgburg · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Don't ask, don't tell is the operating mode for much of the nanotechnology industry these days when it comes to where discarded products end up. Many companies assume that because they are working with compounds that are deemed safe in larger sizes or because the nanomaterials are embedded in larger products, the particles will not pose environmental threats.

    So, let me see if I get it: We haven't proven our nanotech products are safe, but nobody can afford to prove that they aren't. Since there is no proof that they aren't, we'll assume they're safe and dump them wherever it's cheapest. By the time anyone can prove that they aren't safe, we'll have made our money and then some.

    1. Re:Nanotechology disposal by BurritoJ · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, you've got it backwards. It is impossible to prove something safe. In order to do so you have to prove that it has no dangerous properties whatsoever. The more useful test is to prove it dangerous. This is like our legal system, the decision is not innocent/not innocent(safe/not safe), it's guilty/not guilty (dangerous/not dangerous).

      There is no product or substance that is 'safe'. Water drowns, oxygen burns (or makes other things burn), helium... that should be safe, it just makes your voice high and squeaky... unless there is too much of it and it displaces the oxygen (oops).

      Everything has problems and causes risks, we have to avaluate those risks and mitigate them as best we can. We cannot ignore every advancement because it may be dangerous.

  11. FUD by BurritoJ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The surest way to stifle innovation is to demand that the innovator prove that the invention will cause no harm. As we all know, proving a negative is a daunting task and 'harm' is a nebulous concept. All articles like this do is spread FUD. Fear of the unknown, Uncertainty about the future, and doubt in the benefits of progress.

  12. To me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    There is one, and only one, thing that makes me positively scared of Nanotechnology.

    And that is at the time that it becomes technologically and economically feasible, Microsoft will probably still be around.

  13. But will nanotech even be developed? by mongbot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Before we start looking into the safety of nanotechhnology, I think the question of whether nanotech will ever be feasible should be addressed. Here are a few basic problems that I've yet to see any solutions for:
    1. How is energy going to be supplied to the nanobots?
    2. How are the nanobots going to be produced, economically?
    3. How are they going to move (wheels, flying)?

    I don't understand why there is so much emphasis on such a poorly-defined field of technology that has shown so little promise so far. The smaller you make things, the more difficult and expensive they are to produce. Nanotechnology seems to be just a convenient "magic" technology useful only for SF writers.

    1. Re:But will nanotech even be developed? by Michael+Crutcher · · Score: 3, Insightful
      You know those things in your body called cells? The ones that run on sugars, create copies of themselves, and propel themselves with various techniques (flagella, cilia, etc.)?

      Those are pretty damn small, and they seem to work ok. Cells may or may not be nanotechnology depending on your definition but there are definately precedents in nature that show us that nanotechnology is feasible. Viruses might be a better (smaller) example.

    2. Re:But will nanotech even be developed? by denubis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Energy -- probably batteries. We're talking about very small scale here, so a nice room-temp supercon (which since we're talking about nanotech, isn't all that far-fetched) should provide for power requirements.
      Produced, by other nano-assemblers.

      Nanoassemblies should be the cheapest and most efficient production system around -- having many many many small machines "placing" molecules on an on-demand fasion (generally at the place of consumption.) What else do you need? There are no middle-men, there are no shipping costs, there are no store costs. Simply ship atoms and some quantity of data to you, and poof! you've got whatever.

      How are they going to move? Depends on the structure and the task, just like things of today. Flying is trivial for nanotech, since (assuming sufficently strong nanotech production abilities) it's really easy to make things lighter than air. Once you do that, simply add 3 turbines going through the center of the device for thrust, and poof!.

      The principle premise of true "nanotech" is that we can create machines on the molecular level. Given that the initial machines will probably be quite expensive, the initial machines can then make the next generation of machines that make machines (etc..) simply at the cost of a little energy and the moluecules necessary. Nothing else. Miniturization is only a pain when you're talking about going from a macro scale to a micro/nano scale. When your assembly lines operate on that scale, making things on the same scale is trivial.

    3. Re:But will nanotech even be developed? by Dr.+GeneMachine · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Miniturization is only a pain when you're talking about going from a macro scale to a micro/nano scale. When your assembly lines operate on that scale, making things on the same scale is trivial.

      Right. And, conveniently, we don't even have to fully go from macro to nano-scale - biological systems can supply us with many of the tools needed for nanoscale assembly. There is a lot of promising work done in the field of self-assembling nanostructures on DNA and protein basis.

      Some minor nitpicks, though. I don't think that the concept of a battery in the classical sense is applicable on this scale. Energy supply will have to be organized in a more biological kind of fashion - just put your nanomachine in some kind of energy gradient, be it thermal or chemical in nature. The first generation of nanomachines will undoubtely be stationary anyway, so you could put them on top of a membrane separating for example a high-proton from a low-proton medium and let them harvest energy from the proton flux along the gradient - again a working concept established in many biological systems, for example bacteria or mitochondria.

      For the same reason, I would not be concerned about movement at this stage. Later, though, I don't think it will be as simple as you put it. On the nanoscale, the fluid behavior of gaseous media is completely different from what we know, so your put-in-turbines-and-let-them-fly concept most probably won't work. But, again, we can look to biology - flagella and cilia are quite efficient ways of propulsion in media of relatively high viscosity.

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    4. Re:But will nanotech even be developed? by memmel2 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Chemistry We do huge amounts of nanotech every day its the core of the modern world. I think most people don't realize that nanotech is more and extension of extremely well known chemical physics than and reduction in traditional manufacturing processes. The biggest difference between nanotech and chemsitry thats done every day is nanotech is about spatial specific reactions in a homogenous enviroment. In other words given a bunch of reactive molecules we would like to react the ones located at some coordinates. This means introducing some way to control the spatial extent of a reaction. The reactions themselves are fairly well understood. Spatial control is the big deal. I see two complementry approaches. Molecular masks which make the reaction take place in a nonhomogenous enviroment and protein like site sepicific catalysts. Molecular masks can be created at the juncture of two larger structures. For example you can grow two lines in silicon and lay down molecules in the furrow between the lines. The lines themselves may be large but the distance between the two could be on the nanometer scale. This mask then acts as and attachment point for the catalytic reactors. Finally the resulting reacted mask can itself be more complex masks/catalytic rectors. Viola nanotech.

    5. Re:But will nanotech even be developed? by 198348726583297634 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      he long-term theory is to create self-replicating, self-powering nanobots

      doesn't that seem like an awfully large problem, though? can we even make useful robots at normal scale that self-replicate? this seems like the barrier of the sort of faster-than-light travel. possible intheory, but so far remved from what we can do that it pushes the things beyond it into the realm of pure speculation. (which is, of course, a fine activity, but let's not confuse it with things connected to thereal world.)

  14. Re:thinking about for a long long time now... by BrookHarty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The article shows how companies look at the numbers, rather sad.

    First.
    No one has yet created a realistic test for the effects of inhaled nanoparticles; such a test could easily cost more than $1 million to design and carry out, toxicologists say.

    Then.

    the federal government's projection that sales of products based on nanotechnology will reach $1 trillion by 2015

  15. You missed the 15% mortality rate thing by burgburgburg · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Right at the beginning of the article was the discussion of the 15% mortality rate of mice exposed to nanotubes. It was, according to the DuPont researcher leader, "the highest death rate we had ever seen" (and this is a man who started out researching asbestos). Seems they clump up in the lungs and this suffocated 15% of the mice. This doesn't seem nebulous. This seems quite specific.

    And I'll note that 24 hours later, the other 85% seemed perfectly healthy, the assumption being that the nanotubes clumping stopped them from getting into deep regions of the lungs and allowed them to be expelled by coughing.

    So, with specifics of 15% mortality in mice from nanotube exposure, does that warrant concern?

  16. How is this article FUD? by ClarkEvans · · Score: 3, Interesting

    But the $4 million it expects to award next year for risk studies is barely measurable against the $847 million in federal money that President Bush has proposed for nanotechnology research and development for the 2004 fiscal year.

    Couple this with the fact that companies will be more than willing to invest their own dollars in nanotechnology (but not studying risks), it is clear that we are not doing enough to study the environmental impacts of such stuff. This is brand new territory, with new rules and new concequences. It is stupid to think that the old rules to protect people and the environment will be adequate. Environmental messes are *horribly* expensive to clean up by comparison.

    To call this FUD is really irresponsible. You don't jump in head first to a pool of water unless you know how deep the pool is, no?

  17. Don't dismiss peer-reviewed research so stupidly by ClarkEvans · · Score: 3, Informative

    I wonder what the mortality rate is for mice with common dirt released directly into their lungs?

    Did you even bother to look for the actual research. I did a very quick search on google, and found this report. I'd love an actual link to the study, but I don't have time to do more searching.

    This report talked about a study which compared particles of 20 nanometers (deadly) with ones of 130 nanometers (not deadly) in the same concentrations. Certainly these results are not perfect, a better study would make these nanoparticles into an areosol, as this would be the most likely form of real-life delivery.. that is, a light dust cloud breathed by a human after some object was moved containing nanotubes. In any case, I'm sure the same concentration of plain-old dirt would not even be noticed.

    If you want to argue the results... do you own study. Oh wait, that was the point of the NY Times article wasn't it... that not enough studies were being done. Amazing.