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

Follow the lead of Wall St.

[bigtallmofo]

Rather than actually doing anything with Nanotechnology, the UK should instead follow the lead of many Wall St companies and just put the prefix "Nano" in their name. Nano-Kingdom sounds pretty good to me.

Once you do this, you can expect all kinds of amazing profits!

Re:Follow the lead of Wall St.

[FirienFirien]

But Nanokingdom makes it sound either like the country is tiny, or the king (queen) is tiny. It'd trump micronesia though.

Re:Follow the lead of Wall St.

[Anonymous Coward]

the old joke:

nanotechnology will lead to the destruction of mankind in 15 years - but until then it's a great investment...

Just like government...

[bc90021]

...from the article:

"The UK government has responded to one major report into nanotechnologies by ordering another review."

"The Royal Society told the BBC News website it was encouraged by the government's commitment to research, but was disappointed that no extra funding was proposed for it."

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!

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.

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."

Re:Just like government...

[EvilNight]

Problem is, it becomes something of an arms race. Just because you refrain, is no guarantee someone else will hold back. It's the opposite really; if the technology has some value, it'll be researched whereever it is possible to do so. Therefore, we're screwed... any technology that has potential benefits will be explored and realized by whoever can afford to do it, regardless of policy. The technology will simply move to the places where its continued development is not an issue.

This puts us in the unenviable position of trying to make sure the technologies that could cause the most harm are developed primarily in countries we can trust not to use them unwisely (mostly by fostering an environment that gives benefits to that technology's development that cannot be found elsewhere). It also requires us to not drag our feet on any ethical issues that arise with technology, because the technology will not wait for us to become comfortable with it before being used.

Nanotech, in particular, has some very lethal potential failure models that could result in world-altering problems (Ecophagy.) The kinds of problems that this failed nanotech could create can only be effectively combatted by equally advanced nanotech, so again we need the technology itself to properly guard against its own use.

Usually, the argument of "should we" when applied to technology ends up being an ineffective sidebar that has no relevance on its development. We will. We can't stop ourselves. Sometimes the "should we" has beneficial consequences, however. For example, the USA has about a hundred less pressurized/boiling water fission reactors because of it, and this is good, because the modern designs for integral and accelerator driven models are far cleaner and safer than those models; almost to the point of making fusion power irrelevant for the near future. If we build nuclear today, it will be better than if we had done it in the 70's. This is a direct result of the "should we" triggered by three mile island.

Appropriate

[ergo98]

So you could almost say that their nanopolicy is in lots of tiny parts, scattered about, each individually working towards a common goal?

Sounds appropriate.

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.