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Buckyballs Kill Fish
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post (free registration, not too invasive) has a disturbing article on a new study of the environmental dangers of nanotech. Buckyballs caused "severe" brain damage in largemouth bass when added to their aquariums in concentrations of 0.5 ppm, a concentration level on par with common US pollutants. They also caused die-offs of Daphnia, waterfleas that are a crucial part of the ocean food chain. "The new findings are somewhat surprising because many scientists had predicted that buckyballs would not linger in water but would quickly form clumps and sink." The findings have yet to be peer-reviewed."
"Because of the novel arrangements of the atoms in these molecules -- and because the laws of physics behave differently at such scales -- nanoparticles display bizarre chemical properties."
The laws of physics do not behave differently on a HUGE carbon 60 molecule! The article fails to show what the buckyballs do to the fish or aquatic fleas. Does anyone have insight?
120 chars of filth!
It makes me think about the time I lived in Virgina near the Appomattox River. The charming Allied Signal were developing Kepone, but after discovering it caused nerve damage to humans dumped it in the river. It remains today part of the muck... so toxic they won't consider dredging it.
I'm sure there are other examples of toxic waste which was assumed to be safe when it just became part of the muck... it just scares me that this is the logic used in may cases.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Well, we're all going to die anyway.
Yes, but environmental poisoning makes the difference between dying at birth because your nervous system is so damaged it doesn't know how to make your heart operate - or dying from old age at 90.
I know you were joking about it, but still..
They'll probably kill you too.
Speak for yourself. I wuld rather NOT die of brain-damage. It's one of my greatest fears that I might be affected of some mind-debilitating disease like Alzheimer, in the last years of my life. I have seen my grandfather affected by it.
Sigged!
The word "nanotechnology" spans two competely different fields: nanomachines and nanomaterials.
Nanomaterials is what this article is about. The whole field of nanomaterials is exploitng the fact that extremely small particles of materials show physico-chemical behaviour different from that shown at larger scales. Not that the laws of pysics change as some people have said, but that tiny size has an effect upon which laws manifest. Some of those changes are useful - which is why people are researching them. Some are, surprise surprise, dangerous. You get that with any new invention - fire destroys as well as warms.
Nanomaterials are here, now. We need to worry about them like any other new chemical (which, in a way, is what they are - on the boundaries of chemistry and materials physics). But not more. Of course they should be tested - and guess what, they are, as this article shows. No more (or less) of a risk than any of the hundreds of new chemicals which emerge every year. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
Nanomachines are a totally different question. Nanomachines are extremely tiny machines build up either from molecules, or by using silicon engineering developed for microchips to machine silicon (actually two very different technologies lumped together, but so be it). Apart from a few very crude devices, nanomachines are still a long way from any serious production.
People have hypothesized that it might be possible to build self-replicating nanomachines, and that such self-replicationg nanomachines might replicate so fast as to take over the world and reduce it to "grey goo". While you cannot say that this is absolutely impossible, it is very, very far ahead of anything even dreamed off. While a few useful widgets might emerge in the next few years, such gadgets are orders of magnitude away from anything presenting a serious risk to people at large.
(And, actually, I believe we already have self-replicating nanomachines: they are called viruses).
But, because of the confusion of the two terminologies, people are saying "Panic about what nanomachines might do because nanomaterials are here now".
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
Please remember that we are composed primarily of organic compounds... we react in a serious way to molecular carbon. All life on the planet reacts in a serious way to molecular carbon.
Carbon fibers, can and do penetrate cell walls. It's already been discovered that incredibly small concentrations of buckytube carbon fibers, can cause tremendous and unexpectedly servere lung damage, and that those bucky tubes quickly begin dispersing through the other tissues in the body with potentially serious and unpredictable impacts.
Buckyballs can transport metal ions into places metal ions normally can't go in our bodies. Buckyballs can pass easily through the blood brain barrier, and there's no information yet on their impact to neural, blood, or critical organ tissues.
Seeing as nature decided to use carbon as it's primary source of nanotech, and that we are almost certainly going to do the same, we would be wise to make sure that our creations are minimally compatible, and interoperable to the existing machines. To not take these issues into consideration, is to risk unprecedented damage to our environment, and ourselves.
Genda
Well on the plus side they found this out before they started making a ton of products that use it. Compared to the 50's where you had commercials like "DDT it is good for you and it is good for me" (But not good for birds) and many other chemicals that got applications then found to be dangerous. At least now scientist are putting more research for in checking for safety then just assuming that something else will happen. Humility and good science works well together.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
It should be noted that buckyballs were added to aquarium water with fish already in it, and damage was assessed after 48 hours.
Even a reasonably high level of toxicity might not be a major problem if the buckyballs are not persistent in a real-world environment. This is sort of like the short--half-life radioisotopes. They are more toxic precisely because they decay more rapidly, but if they have a half-life of a few days or less, disposal is simply a matter of letting them sit for a while.
The mechanism of effect needs to be determined to assess whether eating contaminated fish would have bad biological repercussions. If buckyballs are just really good oxidizing agents after being broken biologically, the residual effects would be minimal. If, on the other hand, the buckyballs are somehow acting catalytically or as immunological irritants, bioaccumulation could be likely and there would be a threat to humans from eating contaminated fish.
Unfortunately, there is precedent(bottom of page 7 of the PDF) for fullerenes acting as catalysts.
However, the paper linked to above also notes, "Fullerenes are also effective at mopping up free radicals, which damage living tissue. This has led to the suggestion that they might protect the skin in cosmetics, or help hinder neural damage caused by radicals in certain diseases, research on which in rats has already shown promise."[emphasis added] (page 9)
But then the same paper mentions that the size is similar to biologically active molecules, and has an affinity to an active site on an enzyme important to HIV.
It seems a thorough, well-designed toxicology study of fullerenes is in order. It is important that a study of the toxicity be done with conditions reasonably close to real world conditions.
Then don't post the story. It is no better than a couple of guys talking out their asses on a corner (Just like Slashdot, nicht wahr?), until it has hit a journal. Until then, who fucking cares.
Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
i hate to sound anal about this, but what does buckminsterfullerene have to do with nanotechnology? i realize they could be used for nanotechnology, but C60 is just a big molecule. there's no nanotech involved in making fullerenes; you can build a carbon arc in your garage if you want to have them. no microscopic manipulation required. you separate them out.... using a solvent. this isn't nanotech, it's chemistry. whoever wrote this article should think before using buzzwords.
also, interestingly, it should be noted that the toxicity of fullerenes isn't a surprise; when richard smalley and company came up with the fullerene structure in the mid-80's, everyone assumed they were toxic (the molecules, not the scientists). most chemicals with a benzene ring (benzene, toluene, PAHs) are pretty nasty stuff; a buckminsterfullerene molecule has 20 benzene rings in it. it would be a miracle if it weren't toxic.
so anyway, in this article, a group of scientists used well-established chemistry techniques to create an aromatic carbon molecule, and showed that it's toxic. why is this news?
Q.
Insert Signature Here
You're wrong there Dr.: it has a devistating effect on finacial well being of the male homo sapien.
-=- Many seek good nights and lose good days.
Aren't viruses fulleresque? They kill fish, and others, too. As long as the second law of thermodynamics is in effect, we must assume anything we manufacture, however worthwhile, is disruptive, unless we learn otherwise.
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make install -not war
Dumping toxic compounds into ecosystems is stupid, even if the compound in question doesn't directly damage humans. Remember, we live on this planet, in the biosphere, not separate from it. Functioning ecosystems are A Very Good Thing. Taking out major components of functioning ecosystems (if that really is a risk with fullerenes) is not so good.
The DDT ban is mostly due to junk science.