UK Establishes Fragmented Nanopolicy

hlovy writes "The BBC has a piece on British Science Minister Lord Sainsbury's long-sought reaction to a yearlong Royal Society study on the environmental and societal implications of nanotechnology. I've written ad nauseam on the Royal Society report here, here and even for the Wall Street Journal here."

Comments

Re:Just like government...

[millahtime]

The UK wants to be a world leader in nanotechnology, but they are bogging down the reports with reports on reports, and not providing funding. Looks like things will have to change if they want to reach their world-leadership goal!

This is a product of both boomer society and the fact that they don't want to make the wrong decision on such a big topic. So, they are trying to figure out every angle before they make hasty decisions. Granted, they may not be going about doing this the most productive way but there is good logic behind their thinking. To understand the risks before going down a path.

Public opinion

[FirienFirien]

It's unfortunate that the reports are so mass-ignored. The summary of conclusions of the report on the report tends to be what gets out to the public (and presumably not far off what most of Parliament think the topic is about), by which time it's so much mush.

Unless, of course, it's a problematic/slightly dangerous scenario, in which case the papers take it, and distort ("DOOM!") a different summary of conclusion of report, and shout it about for about a day until we get back to who's done what else scandalous.

Re:Just like government...

[gowen]

If it can be done, it will - reports be damned!

While that's certainly true, it doesn't mean that it necessarily *should*.
The fact that some unregulated doctor in a lawless country can practice eugenics, for example, doesn't mean the UK should, merely to maintain some perceived technological advantage.

We're should be civilised enough to say "That's advantageous to us, but morally and ethically repugnant, and potentially dangerous. Therefore, we choose not to do it, even though we can."

Nanotech misconceptions

[nasor]

I am a researcher who is currently working on "nanotechnology"; 2-dimensional films that are a single molecule thick, to be precise. I'm puzzled by exactly what sorts of unique risks people think might be associated with nanotechnology. The BBC article summed it up very well:

"Nanotech manipulates molecules and even atoms to make novel materials. This precision engineering exploits unusual electrical, optical and other properties."

That's it. No one is trying to make swarms of tiny robots that devour everything in their path. Even if someone wanted to do that, no one would have even the faintest idea of how to go about doing it. The mere fact that nanotechnology involves very small particles doesn't mean that it poses some sort of unique health risk. The world is already teaming with nanoparticles of all sorts. Specks of dust, tiny flakes of rock or mineral material, all sorts of plant spores, bits of soot from car emissions...we've always been surrounded by nanomaterials.

Re:Nanotech misconceptions

[Tenebrious1]

The world is already teaming with nanoparticles of all sorts. Specks of dust, tiny flakes of rock or mineral material, all sorts of plant spores, bits of soot from car emissions...we've always been surrounded by nanomaterials.

And most of them are harmful to the body. Tiny flakes of rock or minerals like asbestos cause mesophelioma, plant spores cause allergies and some even cause death, soot causes asthma and other breathing difficulties. It's reckless to say nano structures will have no adverse affects without testing. It's better to lay down guidelines for testing to ensure the risks are studied before these things make their way into the world.

Re:Nanotech misconceptions

[Quantum Fizz]

Tiny flakes of rock or minerals like asbestos cause mesophelioma, plant spores cause allergies and some even cause death, soot causes asthma and other breathing difficulties.

You prove the poster's point. After 20,000 years of fire, we better now decide not to burn any more wood until we can discover just how bad all the carbon nanotubes and buckyballs, along with amorphous soot, that are formed in the fireplace really are for people. Studying health problems is a worthy goal, but why do you suddenly want to do this NOW because of a field called nanotechnology comes about? Why is this field different from any other field? It's not, but people are so much more scared of nanotech than other fields for some reason, probably because of all the 'grey-goo' sci-fi stories. Pretty similar to people being scared shitless of radioactivity in the 50's and 60's (when all the Marvel characters got their powers from radioactivity), as compared to the Spiderman movie from a few years ago, where Spiderman got his power not from a radioactive spider but from a genetically-modified spider.

It's better to lay down guidelines for testing to ensure the risks are studied before these things make their way into the world.

So where do you draw the line? I'm researching in nanotech too, in the university. How are we supposed to test nanotech systems if we cannot study ways to build them because people think it'll inevitably make a self-replicating army of nanobots that will devour all carbon life on the planet?

Should I therefore not try learning to program Python because I might accidently create a self-replicating virus program that could infect every computer on the internet and eventually bring the whole net down? And that we should form a python taskforce to adequately make sure this isn't a big enough risk before letting people program it?

It's better to lay down guidelines for testing to ensure the risks are studied before these things make their way into the world.

How does this work for chemistry? Ie, if a company wants to ship a new plastic polymer in their flyswatter, do they have to be approved by the FDA? What if they change the plastic formula only slightly, or mix two different plastics together that haven't been mixed previously. What are the rules in that situation?

But for nanotech, at this point nobody's talking about mass producing consumer products with easily-removable carbon nanotubes or anything. Nanotech is still pretty much confined to nanotech-specific laboratories (there are companies that will sell you raw nanotubes, or furnaces for growing them, etc).

If you want to limit putting products into market that use nanotubes until a few years of research have been conducted, well that's one way. But to suspend all nanotech research until we know all the risks is ridiculous because we cannot study the risks if we don't make the nanotech systems to begin with.

For example, one big area of nanotech is determining how to actually construct nano-scale systems. Shouldn't research within this field continue so people can figure out better ways to make nanoscale systems so they can study them better? And of course any study of new materials should involve studying associated health risks, but does it make sense to suspend all research until all health risks have been studied? How do you research health risks without researching the systems anyway?

But seriously, why is a scientist making a carbon-nanotube memory chip to sell to the markets in any way more dangerous than a chemist making a polymer that involves DeoxyriboBozoChloroNovicain, a polymer which has never been used before either?

No No

[Doc Ruby]

As people increase our autonomy and power to affect one another, and become less governable, we're seeing more threats that law can control only by 100% effectiveness. And with the minimal effectiveness of international law, combined with the ease of travel of international capital and information, research can't be effectively banned. The only effective global legislation of science appeals rather to positive reinforcement than to negative enforcement, prohibition.

Nanotech, cloning and stemcells (nanobiotech), nukes - the cats are out of the bag, and people will find funding and labspace to pursue these techs. Especially if the supply/demand ratio is enhanced for the vendors by prohibition. But if governments instead funnel money and organization to the beneficial, safer applications of these sciences, the resulting brain drain will keep the industries much safer. Why risk working in the profitless, destructive, risky world of "grey goo" research, when there's fun and profit in solarcell paint - and everyone else is doing it? Just as fruitless as telling someone "don't think of a banana", laws can't stop people from researching some of this dangerous tech. But if we tell everyone to "think of an orange", we'll be able to influence development into much more productive channels. Without engaging in the counterproductive and tyrannical futility of science prohibition.