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Nanotechnology: the Good, the Bad, the Hyperbole
pillageplunder writes "A very informative interview with Kristen Kulinowski who is an executive Director at the Federally funded Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology at Rice University. A good well balanced read."
Nanotech: Beyond the Hype -- and Fear
Kristen Kulinowski's job at the Center for Biological & Environmental Nanotechnology is "to draw attention to proactive, responsible development"
In recent years, an eclectic band of scientists has mapped out a new frontier known broadly as nanotechnology. Though they're from different traditions and methods, these explorers, who include biologists, chemists, physicists, chipmakers, and computational experts, have tackled the same basic question: how to control the building blocks of matter from the bottom up.
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They're learning how to guide individual atoms as they combine to form molecules and, in turn, how to make materials -- molecule-by-molecule -- that don't exist in nature. Their work cuts across some of the hottest areas of science, including innovative drug-delivery systems, cancer treatments, ultrastrong lightweight metals, and mass-produced superconducting wires -- to name a few.
Nanotechnology is surrounded by hyperbole, for good reason. It arguably shows as much promise in both science and business as any other major technology of the past century, including nuclear energy in the 1950s or genetics in the 1990s. Yet before business rushes headlong into a nano-tomorrow, an assessment of the risks nanotechnology poses to public health and the environment needs to be done. Just as nuclear waste and the flap over genetically modified foods tainted the promise of what were supposed to be transforming technologies, many people are concerned that nanomaterials could create problems if introduced without thorough testing.
LESSONS LEARNED. Kristen Kulinowski is uniquely positioned to help separate nanotech hype from reality. As a chemistry faculty member and executive director for Education & Public Policy of the federally funded Center for Biological & Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) at Rice University, she believes that scientists are applying the lessons learned from past disappointments. Well in advance of major commercial production, testing of nanomaterials on living organisms is under way in university labs. And already, federal agencies such as the Food & Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency are exploring regulation that will help ensure that commercialized nanotech is more a dream than a nightmare.
Kulinowski does have concerns that in the near term -- before the basic science is even ironed out -- nanotech research could be derailed by outside factors. Already, nascent signs of dot-com style hucksterism are appearing, with companies making nanotech claims of dubious scientific merit. Conversely, Kulinowski adds, others are fearful of the perils of nanomaterials without understanding the underlying science.
BusinessWeek Industries Editor Adam Aston recently met Kulinowski in Houston, where she talked about some of nanotech's most promising areas and her commitment to help inform public understanding and policy this new area. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:
Q: What worries you about the public's response to nanotechnology?
A: I'm worried about an overreaction to both the hype and the fear. Every time a research article comes out talking about a certain type of risk, a dozen high-profile media stories ring alarm bells but fail to explain all the nuances of the study -- that results need to be repeated, or that concentrations of nanomaterials used in lab studies are unlikely to occur in nature. This sort of alarmist coverage can affect lawmakers as well as the public.
So one of my jobs is to help inform science policymakers in Washington. Likewise, the reactions to positive stories can be overdone -- driving unrealistic expectations about miracle cures or how soon new nanomaterials may be available.
Q: What are the real risks?
A: There are two broad categories of risk assessment going on right now. One is in biological systems -- starting with the effects on individual cells and up to more sophisticated organisms such
We've had a lot of rubbish about nanotech here in the UK, including the belief that a flesh-eating grey goo will take over the world. Honestly, our tabloid papers will report anything...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
Shocking stuff, A robot with strands of DNA for legs!
While you're there you can also read about nano trees. The creators speculate that the technology could lead to "three-dimensionally interconnected computing structures analogous to the brain".
Smalley's Group (he and Curl discovered Buckyballs)
:)
Halas's Nanophotonics Group
CNST at Rice
Vicki Colvin's Intro to Nanoscience
Sorry, I couldn't find any sites about how nanoscience is going to kill us all
erm, don't you mean "microtechnology" - i.e. electromechanical devices on the scale of microns? Not sure where nanotechnology is used in a hard drive... correct me if I'm wrong.
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
Dr. Hendrik Schön?
9 01 .html
... findings ... dismiss as
http://csf.colorado.edu/mail/pfvs/2002III/msg00
"[The] committee
fiction, results from 17 papers that had been promoted as major breakthroughs
in physics, including claims last fall that Bell Labs had created
molecular-scale transistors."
there are some remarkable examples of self-assembly in nature, besides the often given example of mitosis.
the key appears to be symmetry - identical units coming together in a way that is actually thermodynamically favorable.
consider the envelopes of viruses. very often these proteins envelopes take the form of platonic and archimedian solids, yet they are made from identical protein subunits (i.e. legos). within this protein, the dna or rna of the virus is housed.
but the neat thing is that you can add chemicals which will break the protein envelope apart into its subunits. if you then takes these pieces and leave them alone in solution for a while, the pieces will actually self-assemble into the original structure again (regardless of whether or not the nucleic acid of the virus is even present anymore, in most cases).
in this remarkable instance, the default position of nature is to self-assemble! and it is done in a way that does not involve a cell.
Sorry... I'm trained as a protein biochemist, and I can't help but comment on your post, which is basically correct, but may lead some people to think that viruses can self-replicate and self-assemble outside of the cell.
The reason the viral coat proteins self-assemble is that this is the most thermodynamically favorable state for these proteins in the aqueous environment in which the virus is replicating... i.e., the cell. The proteins have evolved such that their specific amino acid compositions make the assembled state most favorable. I suppose this is a valid analogy to what some nanotechnology research is tryin gto accomplish.
However, the proteins don't copy themselves and then self-assemble. The proteins are translated from the genetic material of the virus (DNA or RNA), and then the proteins self-assemble. The machinery that does this translation is most often provided by the host cell.
This is practically identical to how the cell itself replicates, although on a smaller scale. The genetic material is translated into proteins that can do the work required to make a new cell (copy the DNA, synthesize or import the lipids needed for the membrane, synthesize the proteins needed, and so on).
Sometimes, there are even special proteins called chaperones that help other proteins adopt their "correct" structure. I do not actually know of a case where this happens for viral proteins, but it wouldn't surprise me if one exists.
So... yes, once all the parts are produced, many viruses can self-assemble outside of a cell, as long as the conditions (pH, salt concentration, etc) are such that this is what is thermodynamically most favorable. But to get replication, you need the cell.
I don't understand how so many slashdotters can be convinced that we will experence global armegeddon at the hands of nanomachines that will reduce us to 'grey goo'.
I hope what I type here might help dispel some of this parasitic meeme!
In the event that we mannage to make 'room temprature' nanmachines that are not instantly destroyed by a slight breeze, can break down even terminally simple matter for use in replication, and somehow get released into the world with a malicious intent (or through a glitch)- they will not be too much of a threat!
Ultimately unless some methoed of making semi-conductors and computer circurtry that dose not involve electricity at all comes along, each and every single active nanomachine will be vunerable to a simple EMP, and EMPs can be easily generated by sending massive voltage through a coil- hence even a 'barnyard warrior' fighting a nanomachine threat could rig up his disel truck to take out the microscopic buggers (that might make a good movie though!). In the event that we do find a way to making non-electric computer circutry it would have to be immue to dosens of other things that can mess with computer circuts (for instance a theoretically 100% optical computer could be fried by massive ammounts of UV radiation)
And lets not forget the technical overhead required to overcome those first few problems! Any nanomachine made of metal will be victim to rust, small bits of object rust much faster then large ones- hence a swarm of iron nanomachines could be killed with a simple spray of salt-water! Diamond ones would be extremely brittel (diamond is strong, but shatteres rather then bending) so sound waves would be an effective weapon (True for any crystaline structure; and a crystaline structure is required for optical transmission!)
Next is the ability to reprduce using simple matter, I mean, a lab is a very different enviornment then the real world, we'll probablly see self-replicating nano-machines that work in specifically temperature controled vats long before we see ones that can do it in the real world: Why, even if you can get a machine so sofisticated that it can tear apart simple carbon atoms, and whatever else it needs (and figure out what's carbon and what's not) and build a copy of itself, it's likely to loose it's tiny manipulators with every major temprature change, as the particles grow and contract while it tries to move them along!
Next someone will have to be able to get a hold of these things, and reprogram them to do somethign bad (that may actually be the easiest part: as all you have to do is REMOVE code that will be telling them to do other things besides replicate), but it will still require a multi-billion dollar lab to access there tiny circutry and reprogram them on such a basic level (the equivalent to taking out chips in a modern computer, but requireing a nano-manipulator!), so this is not something a 'backyard terrorist' is going to do, and if a government dose it, they will put a reasonable 'off' time in them, which will probabally put them into the same catagory as other WMDs. But even if they did not, it would still be vunerable to the same fighting techniques I outlined above
Please note, this is the same essay on grey goo I used before- but it still applies!
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post