Nanotech Gone Awry?

westcoaster004 writes "Chemical and Engineering News is reporting what appears to be 'the first recall of a nanotechnology-based product' due to health risks associated with it. The recall of 'Magic Nano' spray, which is for use on glass and ceramic surfaces to make them repel dirt and water, comes after at least 77 people in Germany contacted regional poison control centers after experiencing illness after using the product. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment has also issued a warning." Relatedly dolphin558 writes "There is an interesting story in the Washington Post on the unknown dangers facing employees of nanotechnology firms. The jury is still out on whether traditional HAZMAT safeguards are suitable when handling nanomaterials, many of which can be harmful. Research into potential workplace hazards is beginning to ramp up as the industry and government become more aware of this issue."

Comments

Nanotech?

[shadowcode]

What I wonder is, how much of this product is actually related to nanotech? Isn't it just some fancy spray with 'nano' slapped on the label?

Re:Nanotech?

[aussie_a]

I always think of nanotechnology as dealing with self-replicating machines that are at the atomic scale. But I suppose any "spray" can technically be classed as nanotechnology (if you define it as "technology at the atomic scale").

Aaah, definition games. Fun.

Re:Nanotech?

[jcorno]

According to one of the five linked articles, it contains silicon and silica nanoparticles. The same article mentions that the problem is only in the aerosol version of the product, not the spray pump. It could just be the propellant causing the problem, but that seems pretty unlikely. I don't think they'd have to resort to using an unorthodox propellant if you can use the stuff in a spray pump.

Re:Nanotech?

[ozmanjusri]

Isn't it just some fancy spray with 'nano' slapped on the label?

It's claimed to have nano-sized particles of silica and silicone suspended in ethanol and water. Silicone is known to be a mild dermal irritant, so I'd guess the illness is a result of silicone inhalation.

The nanotech aspect may be relevant in that the small particle size would allow the spray to bypass the body's protection mechanisms and directly affect the alveoli. That would be consistent with the symptoms described. It's drawing a long bow to call it a nanotech hazard though.

Re:Nanotech?

[Knuckles]

I agree with all you say except this: It's drawing a long bow to call it a nanotech hazard though.

to me it seems a very typical nanotech hazard, since "to bypass the body's protection mechanisms and directly affect " is a pretty common property of nano particles.

Re:Nanotech?

[Maset]

Have they never heard of silicosis?

Re:Nanotech?

[bigberk]

> how much of this product is actually related to nanotech?

Maybe you don't understand what nanotechnology is? It's a broad term that describes physical technology built at the nanometer scale. Particles and materials built from them on these small scales sometimes have useful properties that technology can exploit. The computer side of it is just an application of the small structures.

This story is about illness due to inhaled particles from a cleaning product. It's not clear to me whether the product actually made use of nanotechnology, that is, nanometer sized particles because of properties that were useful for the cleaner. It is quite possible that it did, on the other hand who knows where the term 'nano' entered the discussion -- perhaps it was just on product marketing?

Very difficult to know right now. Personally I would air on the side of caution and avoid internal exposure (eating, drinking, inhaling) to any materials containing newly discovered/manufactured nanoparticles, because it is possible such small unnatural particles have toxic or other undesirable affects on the human body. This is the same care I would take with exposure to any new material.

There are lots of poisons out there to begin with, again the question this story raises is are there new risks specifically associated with artificially made nanometer scaled particles as opposed to existing materials?

Re:Nanotech?

[jbengt]

My guess, and it's just a pure guess, is that, as the nano particles are suspended in water and ethanol, the aerosal makes a fine mist of liquid micro particles containing the suspended nano particles, which gets into the lungs easier than the macro particles from the spray pump.

Re:Nanotech?

[ozmanjusri]

"to bypass the body's protection mechanisms and directly affect " is a pretty common property of nano particles.

Yes, but it is not a function of nano technology. Any respirable particle (one which is small enough to enter the alveoli) will have similar consequences. That includes things like grain dust, silica, asbestos, metal fume from welding - the whole pantheon of existing nano sized, but not nano tech toxins.

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

""to bypass the body's protection mechanisms and directly affect " is a pretty common property of nano particles"

What, like smoke? Smoke is basically a bunch of Bucky balls that are nano-sized - or in pre-hype terms, microscopic - that also bypass the body's defense systems and suffocate you say, in a fire.

And to be honest silicone sprays have been around for ages, so slapping 'nano' on the front doesn't necessarily make it a micro-engineered product, you may as well say the same about hair spray...

Re:Nanotech?

[TubeSteak]

The nanotech aspect may be relevant in that the small particle size would allow the spray to bypass the body's protection mechanisms and directly affect the alveoli. That would be consistent with the symptoms described. It's drawing a long bow to call it a nanotech hazard though.

You're right that it's about the small particle size and wrong that it's 'a long bow to call it a nanotech hazard'.

Asbestos (wonderful material) is considered verboten because, from Wikipedia: Most respirable asbestos fibers are invisible to the unaided human eye because their size [diameter] is about 3.0-20.0 m in length and can be as thin as 0.01 m.

0.01 m = 10 nanometers

Asbestos is the example Doctors use when talking about the threat from nanoparticles. The other biggies that get talked about are teflon and metal/welding fumes.

There's a big business in 99.97% HEPA filtration, because it's the standard for asbestos cleanup. You can read more about that specific filter quality to understand why they use 99.97% as the benchmark.

In the past, particle size was talked about in microns or sub-micron. We've been dealing with nanoparticles for a long time, it's just now the word "nano" is getting attached to those products because nano is currently cool.

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking of the second edition rules where a longbow has a 2/1 rate of fire. I think he means a heavy crossbow. They're quite the trick.

Re:Nanotech?

[Liam Slider]

The nanotech aspect may be relevant in that the small particle size would allow the spray to bypass the body's protection mechanisms and directly affect the alveoli. That would be consistent with the symptoms described. It's drawing a long bow to call it a nanotech hazard though.

By those sorts of arguments mere chemistry is "nanotechnology." When it's a nanomachine of some sort that has problems....then they get to make the claim about nanotech going awry.

Re:Nanotech?

[th3ranger]

Why does this all sound like Europe's reaction to genetically altered vegetables? They called it frankenfood...nevermind that without genetic altering corn would be a weed. This sound all too much like another ill informed reaction to a new technology those "across the pond" refuse to embrace or understand.

Re:Nanotech?

[The Terminator]

Classical breeding has no relationship to genetic manipulation. The simple truth with gentech is, its not needed with one exception: Cash for Monsanto, Syngenta et. al.
There is strong evidence, that genetically changed crop not simply harms the farmers bot helps take the,m hostage by Monsanto etc. Look at India and the rice and cotton plants. They have less quality and you dont need less but more herbizides and insectizides. Furthermore they are designed to not being fertile anymore so that you cannot gain seeds from your harvest. If I would get knowledge of a field with genetically seeds I would burn it down. That should be done with every single plant of genetically altered Plants!!

This is no joke, I mean it deadly serious!

CU

Re:Nanotech?

[bignickel]

Adding "Magic" to the front of your product name really does little for your credibility. This is a little reminiscent of another spray.

Re:Nanotech?

[Rakishi]

...thank god people like you areu usally too stupid to do anything correctly otherwise we'd have never gotten out of the stone age.

Re:Nanotech?

[ScrewMaster]

So, what you're REALLY saying is the the people that get these ailments have a specific model of iPod in their lungs.

Re:Nanotech?

[Columcille]

I always think of nanotechnology as dealing with self-replicating machines that are at the atomic scale.

You've watched too much StarGate. :)
From Wikipedia:

Nanotechnology is any technology which exploits phenomena and structures that can only occur at the nanometer scale, which is the scale of several atoms and small molecules.

Re:Nanotech?

[Knuckles]

Except that the widespread use of "low"-tech nanotech (like the spray in the story) will increase the number of types of those particles tremendously, and will likely come up with new types all the time.

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Diamond Age, anyone???? If Crichton has credibility why not Stephenson?

Re:Nanotech?

[SnowZero]

Yeah, there's a lot of nanotech in my apartment on the furniture that I haven't used in a while. My apartment is constantly producing and inventing new types of particles in between dustings.

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

What I wonder is, how much of this product is actually related to nanotech? Isn't it just some fancy spray with 'nano' slapped on the label?

If you're complaining that this product is not made out of the tiny machines that Eric Drexler promised you, then you should actually be glad. I'd rather have silicosis than be turned into gray goo.

Re:Nanotech?

[plunge]

You mean my iPod isn't nontechnology???? (cries....)

Re:Nanotech?

[e4g4]

I would imagine that the problem is the fact that the aerosol version aerosolizes the nano particles, whereas the spray pump does not - have you ever observed the cloud of almost-vapor that just sort of hangs in the air when you spray something like Lysol? The same behavior with a substance containing nasty little nanoparticles could potentially be really, really bad for you. Why didn't they think of this? Surely they knew that inhaling billions of silica nanoparticles would be hazardous to your health.

Re:Nanotech?

[JourneyExpertApe]

How much of nanotechnology is actually nanotechnology? It seems to me that, since small molecules are on a "nano" scale, anything could be claimed to be nanotechnology. Has nanotech ever been anything but a buzzword?

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the day, we called this Chemistry.

Re:Nanotech?

[AoT]

Is it so crazy that people are concerned that the very first thing we did with genetic modification on a broad level was to alter food? I mean, what if we had started irradiating all our food when we first discovered radiation? People like you, who unquestioningly support any new scientific advance as good are just as dangerous, if not more so, than those who reject all advances outright.

As for the dangers of the current genetically modified food; we really can't tell. It isn't as if all types of genetically altered food would present the same dangers, some may be perfectly safe, other not so safe. The big problem now is the increasing use of pesticides when growing crops and the increase in price for farmers. Not the big industrial farms, they make up for the price in economies of scale, but the small farms and local producers. It is often cheaper, and more profitable, for small farmers to grow organically.

So on the whole, I have found that I would prefer to not have a relativey new technology pervading our food supply as it does now.

Re:Nanotech?

[mspohr]

You and the GP are clueless. This article has nothing to do with genetic engineering. The article is about nanotechnology. These are two completely different things.

Re:Nanotech?

[AoT]

Um, yes, I do in fact know what the story was about. I was responding to someone who was talking about genetic modification. Offtopic maybe, but not clueless.

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

“Of course feeding ten billion will not be trivial. It will require at least 35% more calories than the world’s farmers grow today... That will mean either better yields or less rainforest--which is why fertilisers, pesticides and transgenes are the best possible protectors of the planet.”

--

The story of wheat

Ears of plenty
Dec 20th 2005
From The Economist print edition

The story of man’s staple food

[Image] (Still Pictures)

IN 10,000 years, the earth’s population has doubled ten times, from less than 10m to more than six billion now and ten billion soon. Most of the calories that made that increase possible have come from three plants: maize, rice and wheat. The oldest, most widespread and until recently biggest of the three crops is wheat (see chart). To a first approximation wheat is the staple food of mankind, and its history is that of humanity.

Yet today, wheat is losing its crown. The tonnage (though not the acreage) of maize harvested in the world began consistently to exceed that of wheat for the first time in 1998; rice followed suit in 1999. Genetic modification, which has transformed maize, rice and soyabeans, has largely passed wheat by--to such an extent that it is in danger of becoming an “orphan crop”. The Atkins diet and a fashion for gluten allergies have made wheat seem less wholesome. And with population growth rates falling sharply while yields continue to rise, even the acreage devoted to wheat may now begin to decline for the first time since the stone age.

It is time to pay tribute to this strange little grass that has done so much for the human race. Strange is the word, for wheat is a genetic monster. A typical wheat variety is hexaploid--it has six copies of each gene, where most creatures have two. Its 21 chromosomes contain a massive 16 billion base pairs of DNA, 40 times as much as rice, six times as much as maize and five times as much as people. It is derived from three wild ancestral species in two separate mergers. The first took place in the Levant 10,000 years ago, the second near the Caspian Sea 2,000 years later. The result was a plant with extra-large seeds incapable of dispersal in the wild, dependent entirely on people to sow them.

The story actually starts much earlier, around 12,000 years ago. At the time, after several warm millennia, a melting ice sheet in North America collapsed and a gigantic lake drained into the North Atlantic through the St Lawrence seaway. The torrent of cool, fresh water altered the climate so drastically that the ice age, which had been in full retreat, resumed for a further 11 centuries. The Scandinavian ice sheet surged south. Western Asia became not only cooler, but much drier. The Black Sea all but dried out.

People in what is now Syria had been subsisting happily on a diet of acorns, gazelles and grass seeds. The centuries of drought drove them to depend increasingly on wild grass seeds. Abruptly, soon after 11,000 years ago, they began to cultivate rye and chickpeas, then einkorn and emmer, two ancestors of wheat, and later barley. Soon cultivated grain was their staple food. It happened first in the Karacadag Mountains in south-eastern Turkey--it is only here that wild einkorn grass contains the identical genetic fingerprint of modern domesticated wheat.

Who first replanted the seeds and why? For a start, he was probably a she: women have primary responsibilities for plant gathering in hunter-gatherer societies. The time was certainly ripe for agriculture: the ability to make tools and control fire (cooking makes many plants more digestible) was already well established. But was it an act of inspiration or desperation? Did it perhaps happen by accident, as discarded grains germinated around human settlements?

Re:Nanotech?

[clarkcox3]

Bzzzt. 0.01m = 10 micrometers.

0.00000001m = 10 nanometers.

...slight difference

Re:Nanotech?

[onebecoming]

We've been genetically engineering foods (and animals) for tens of thousands of years. Do we run a greater risk of breeding poisonous strains of corn, now that we can do it so much faster? I doubt it, but I'll admit I don't have a 100% certain answer, so I'll move on to the more important point:

GM food is engineered to require less pesticides. That's good for farmers, good for the environment, good for health. Everyone wins except for Big Bad Petrochemical. Another important point:

GM food is engineered to require less land per the same yield. Again, everyone wins, especially forests that would otherwise have been subject to logging and clearing, etc.

Re:Nanotech?

[geekboy642]

Um.

Let me be the first to call IDIOT.

1 decimeter = 0.1 meters
1 centimeter = 0.1 decimeters
1 millimeter = 0.1 centimeters
1 micrometer = .001 millimeters
0.00001 meters = 1 micrometer

But hey, that's only a few orders of margin off.
Now open wide, I've got a 40 micrometer tablet for you to swallow.

Re:Nanotech?

[SeeMyNuts!]

I think what it boils down to is that people are wary of the lagging understanding that follows massive discoveries. Technicians had their nuts cooked by RADAR when it was new tech, for example. Same for Radium/radiation in the 1800s.

It does not at all mean the new technology is bad--it's just not fully understood. That takes time.

Re:Nanotech?

[AoT]

We have been selectively breeding food, not genetically engineering. And yes, in fact, we do run a greater risk of creating poisonous strains of corn. Before that would have been impossible, or near enough, now we can do it with the inclusion of a simple gene sequence.

GM food is engineered to require less pesticides.

That is at best misleading and at worst outright wrong. The RoundUp Ready line of crops are specifically engineered to resist pesticides so that higher levels can be used. Some plants do require less pesticides, but these are the ones which produce their own pesticide.

As for your contention that GM food reduces the amount of land needed, I'd like some hard statistics on that. If it's true that would be a good thing, but given how wrong you were on the previous point I'll assume you're wrong for lack of evidence.

Re:Nanotech?

[Rakishi]

No, most GM food is made to use MORE pesticides. Attempting to ignore that is downright silly, and not knowing that makes you little better than the frankenfood people.

See, one of the easiest gm foods to make is one that is resistant to pesticides/herbicides (specific ones). Now, logically if your crop is resistant to pesticide/herbicide and the weed/fungus/whatever aren't why the fuck wouldn't you use more chemicals? And guess what, that is the point you use more chemicals because your crops won't die. Another easy GM food to make is one that constantly creates a natural pesticide/herbicide, thus also using more chemicals. If you're wondering these are bad because of pollution problems and because nature isn't static and will create resistant strains of pests, and then everyone is screwed.

The other types of gm food are still a minority, and last I checked weren't making amazing progress. With time this will change but right now that is the situation, many of the current gm crops aren't that amazing and are arguably a bad thing.

In summary, both sides of this argument are populated with blind zealots arguably more so on the anti side. On one hand you have people who blindly think gm is great, has no problems, no one should worry about it and that the current gm crops are all some majestic creation. The other side wasn't to throw out the baby with the bathwater, then shoot the family for good measure. We didn't ban refrigerators because they used ozone depleting chemicals; we made legislation so that future refrigerators were better.

Re:Nanotech?

[onebecoming]

Neither misleading nor wrong, but perhaps oversimplified. Some crops are engineered to withstand heavier pesticide use, true enough, but many more are being engineered to withstand the pests themselves. These plants do not "produce their own pesticide" in the sense that they spray toxins all over everything in sight, contaminating the water table for years at once, as traditional pesticides require (assuming you're referring to Bt varieties of cotton and corn). Bt pollen does appear to harm "good" insects like butterflies, along with the cropeaters, but so would the pesticides that would otherwise need to be used--and pesticides lead to all those other nasty side effects as well.

I'm not sure why you have the idea that GM is bad for the environment. Genetic engineering is the greenest, most environmentally friendly thing to happen in agriculture since they started recycling bat guano as fertilizer. Already, countries with the greatest adoption of GM techniques, such as China, are reaping increased yields with lower strain on their natural resources. (I know China's not exactly a shining exemplar of environmental purity, but consider how much worse it would be without the help of GM crops.)

Finally, does it really require explanation that higher yields mean less land is needed per unit yield? This seems obvious to me. You could argue long-term that higher yields enable a greater population which will, in turn, require more land devoted to agriculture, but that's a separate issue, and besides, population statistics from the developed world indicate the exact opposite in practice.

Re:Nanotech?

[AoT]

Bt pollen does appear to harm "good" insects like butterflies

I'm pretty sure that's been shown to be wrong, recently. And I don't necessarily think it will be bad for the environment, I do however think it often is bad for the environment in practice. Besides heavy use of pesticides causing environmental damage, they can also make the pests more and more resistant. Top this off with the cross-pollination of other plants and the company suing people when their fields get contaminated by patented crops and it seems to me that there are very serious issues here that are not being discussed.

Finally, does it really require explanation that higher yields mean less land is needed per unit yield?

Aah, that hadn't occured to me.

Like I said before, I'm not necessarily against GE, but I think we should use it for things other than our food supply while we determine the full health and environmental effects. This just seems like common sense

Re:Nanotech?

[boriquajake]

I don't know where to begin. In fact I am sure talking to you about this would be an exercise in frustration but here goes. "Classical breeding has no relationship to genetic manipulation." Flatly false. The only difference is the pace at which traights may be introduced. "The simple truth with gentech is, its not needed with one exception: Cash for Monsanto, Syngenta et. al" Whose blog are your parroting here? Sure these companies make money on their products but they don't make money if nobody percieves any value in them. The only way anybody would purchase the seeds is if the profits from the crops compared favorably to other options. "Look at India and the rice and cotton plants. They have less quality and you dont need less but more herbizides and insectizides. " Again, flat wrong. Not only flat wrong but unsubstantiated head-in-the-sand propoganda of the same sort that convinced African governments to refuse donated GM foods that could have fed thousands. This type of blanket assertion is enough evidence alone to discredit those that believe in this crap. "If I would get knowledge of a field with genetically seeds I would burn it down." That is called terrorism, douche-bag.

Re:Nanotech?

[Jeremi]

The simple truth with gentech is, its not needed with one exception: Cash for Monsanto, Syngenta et. al.

"The simple truth with computer tech is, its not needed with one exception: Cash for Apple, Microsoft, Dell, et al."

Of course it's not "needed"... everything can in principle be done the traditional way. The question is, are there benefits that can be realized through the use and development of the technology? If not, then people will figure that out, nobody will buy the technology and it will go away. If so, then it's likely something worth developing, even if it isn't "necessary" (whatever that means).

Note that I'm not saying it shouldn't be watched closely, or that the current products of GM are necessarily useful or beneficial; only that the entire field shouldn't be dismissed out of hand as "useless" or "evil" or whatnot.

Re:Nanotech?

[Eunuchswear]

GM food is engineered to require less pesticides [sic].

Is it? Which GM food? Or do you think all GM foods use the same modifications?

Are you maybe talking about roundup-ready crops? In which case it's not engineeerd to need less pesticide, but to be immune to one of the best herbicides we have, roundup (aka glyphosphate). This should, in theory, allow better use of the herbicide, but in practice can mean thay we just spray the shit around, killing everything but the food crop. http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GMCIPU.php>for example.

The even worse news is that there is evidence that the roundup-ready gene may spread to weed species, destroying the usefulness of roundup and so increasing the use of more noxious herbicides.

GM food is engineered to require less land...

Once again, which crop are you talking about?

Do you realy think food production is currently limited by the land we have? Rather than by water, fertilizer, labour?

Re:Nanotech?

[ec_hack]

The RoundUp Ready line of crops are specifically engineered to resist pesticides so that higher levels can be used.

Nope. They are herbicide resistant, so you can spray RoundUp herbicide on them without killing them.

Re:Nanotech?

[ozmanjusri]

You're right it will, and some substances will have increased health effects as a result of the reduced particle size - the increased surface area alone could do that.

My objection is to the claim that this is somehow different and harder to manage than our existing, naturally produced nano particles.

Re:Nanotech?

[zopf]

Any strain of anything could become poisonous with or without genetic engineering. That's why companies test their products before sending them to market.

As for RoundUp-Ready plants, think about what you're saying... what is RoundUp? It is an herbicide. Therefore, genetically modified RoundUp-Ready plants are modified to be resistant to the herbicides used in RoundUp. Thus, a farmer can spray the same amount of RoundUp as he might normally, but will only kill the unwanted plants. What is the effect of this? The plants that do live, ie the crops, have more nutrients and more root space available to them in the soil, and thus the GM crops can naturally grow larger, just as they would in a field without weeds. You don't have to modify them to grow faster than they can support. You just enable a farmer to select for only the crops he wants.

Also, if you will not provide others with hard statistics, don't demand that they do so. That's hypocrisy, and the reason I will not ask you for hard statistics on your poison risk. However, if you really are interested in the issues surrounding GM crop development and implementation in modern agricultural communities, I'd suggest you check out this PDF publication from an agricultural department of the UK government.

So there you have it. Evidence at your fingertips. They describe the advantages of GM crops in more detail than I have here, and they analyze the implications for agricultural communities of different sizes and socioeconomic status. You would likely learn a lot from this document, if that is indeed your goal. But if you're just posting to draw attention to yourself like a bully on a playground, grow up.

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you selectively breed cucumber to be a pest resistant organic crop you end up with a fataly toxic plant.

Solanine,chaconine, cucurbitacin, psoralen and genestein inpotato, cucurbits, celery and soy have all been shown to have physiological effects if slightly elevated in food. (Trewavas and Stewart, 2003)

The fatsoluble neurotoxins, solanine and chaconine, high doses of these have been shown to cause birth defects and accumulate from potato consumption.
(Ames and Gold, 1999)

Even worse, fungal growth on food which is more common on organic produce, causes serious poisining and may have contributed to the french revolution.
(Murder, Magic and Medicine by John Mann p46)

Re:Nanotech?

[sp0rk173]

There's one problem, environmentally and socially, with GM crops: Monoculture. When you have thousands of individuals with the exact same genetic make up spread across several hundred acres, you have a population ripe for massive dissease spread. Viruses, insects, and especially microorganisms go through many generations in one crop cycle and can adapt and exploit the flaws genetic engineers may have missed or even inserted by mistake. I think it's ludicrous to assume that our research and development can, in the long run, stay abreast of these kinds of threats when there are systematic temporal constraints (funding, peer review, the iterative nature of it, etc) inherent in scientific research that don't exist in nature. The random variation that exists in "natural" breeding prevents a full-on plant pandemic, but when so many individual plants are so genetically similar, it only takes one fungus, virus, insect, etc to take out an entire kind of crop. Even if it is contained, massive economic loss could very conceivably occur.

Why would we want to set that kind of situation up? Oh, right. Because it makes monsanto rich, and secondarily makes congressmen rich. Gotcha.

Re:Nanotech?

[Knuckles]

Will be interesting to see :)

Re:Nanotech?

[onebecoming]

Well, if it comes down to either spraying pesticides all over the place or having plants produce pesticides (nontoxic to humans) internally, I know which I'd rather have in my backyard. Evolved resistance is a problem in either case; I sort of have the feeling that an arms race, à la medical antibiotics, is inevitable. The best we can do is to use pesticides as sparingly and judiciously as possible, which is what genetic engineering enables farmers to do.

I'll agree that Monsanto, the company, is severely fucked in the head. I doubt there'd be so much animosity towards genetic engineering but for the irresponsible pigheadedness of this one company.

Re:Nanotech?

[FreakWent]

Herbicides.

Monsanto produces GE roundup ready crops, so that you can use LOTS MORE herbicides and destroy all the other plants without harming your own crop.

Just thought I'd mention it. My concern isn't GE as such, I just think there's not enough control/testing/prevention of accidental release.

Re:Nanotech?

[FreakWent]

I thought the whole idea of nanotech was to use nano sized particles.

As a general rule, particles this size are not encountered. Any exceptions you are thinking of typically are handled by professionals wearing appropriate respirators and equipment.

If however particles of this size appear in consumer products in the supermarket then this is different altogether -- do you see?

Re:Nanotech?

[zachk]

Another easy GM food to make is one that constantly creates a natural pesticide/herbicide, thus also using more chemicals.
Crops that produce these natural pesticides you're referring to are known as Bt crops. They produce a protein in their cells that is found in a microorganism in the soil, Bacillus thuringiensis. This toxin paralyzes the digestive tracts of corn borers and other pests leading to its starvation. This protein already exists in nature in great quantity and is harmless to humans, thus refuting your implications that GM crops produce and release vast amounts of harmful chemicals into the surrounding ecosystem.

Re:Nanotech?

[Rakishi]

Do you realy think food production is currently limited by the land we have? Rather than by water, fertilizer, labour?

And wonders of wonders, if have denser crops (especially if this is due to less weeds) you will use less water, fertilizer and labor. I'll let you think about that one, if you need me to explain this in detail then simply ask.

Re:Nanotech?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

They have less quality and you dont need less but more herbizides and insectizides. Furthermore they are designed to not being fertile anymore so that you cannot gain seeds from your harvest. If I would get knowledge of a field with genetically seeds I would burn it down. That should be done with every single plant of genetically altered Plants!!

You forgot, "It's true! :)"

In any case, yes, farmers prefer to grow this stuff because it requires more costly insecticides and yields an inferior product. That's the way to stay in business! :rollseyes:

Re:Nanotech?

[Sam Nitzberg]

That just reminded me that one of the (older?) terms for perfume-spray bottles is "atomizer" :-)

Re:Nanotech?

[Anonymous Coward]

you're quite mistaken in almost all arenas. roundup resistance isn't there so they can spray loads of roundup on crops. that costs more money. you can be certain that the minimum effective doses are being used by smart growers.

you are correct that BT toxin corn and others require less chemical spray. but BT has been proven safe, and is biological and not chemical in origin. You don't know what you're talking about here.

GM crops require less land because they grow larger with less competition than traditional strains. You don't have to believe it, the market sorts these problems out on its own. If it weren't profitable, Monsanto wouldn't exist. If it didn't make economic sense, farmers wouldn't do it year after year. If GM crops killed people, they would be outlawed.

GM crops which require less pesticide application also help soil quality remain high, as less tilling is required, less compaction occurs.

Re:Nanotech?

[Savantissimo]

"Nanotechnology" as re-coined* by Eric Drexler did originally mean self replicating systems of machines with atomically precise parts. Once this innovative idea made nanotechnology known to the public, the term was hijacked for funding purposes by chemists and people working with thin films, fine powders and droplets. Since the term had gotten so debased, Drexler started calling his kind of nanotech "molecular nanotechnology".

*"Nanotechnology" had been used at least once before Drexler, but the term was not adopted by any group.

a slashdot staple

[Anonymous Coward]

having headlines like "such and such technology goes slightly wrong. is this the END OF THE WORLD?!?!?!!!!"

i love it.

could be very good...

[joe 155]

One of the problems with the regulation of nano technology here in the UK is that when a product is deamed to be safe no new procedures have to be gone through in order to use the same product on a nano scale, but the impact which they could have could be completely different. I am a fan of nano technology but I see this case as a good thing, it will encourage greater testing and safety procedures whilst not turning people into anti-nano zealots because (thankfully on many levels) no one seems to have died.

Re:could be very good...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the problems with the regulation of nano technology here in the UK is that when a product is deamed to be safe no new procedures have to be gone through in order to use the same product on a nano scale

If it's at a completely different scale, manufactured in a different way, and acts in a different way, then it's not the same product, is it?

PS: it's "deemed", not "deamed".

Re:could be very good...

[pla]

If it's at a completely different scale, manufactured in a different way, and acts in a different way, then it's not the same product, is it?

Good question - And we don't have the answer to that yet.

Although an entirely different realm of products, consider CPUs... The earliest ones had features you could resolve under relatively low power magnification. As the individual features got smaller and smaller - Now quite literally nanoscale, literally smaller than you can resolve with traditional optical microscopy. As a result (or rather, of necessity), manufacturing them has gone from simple white-light optical photolithography to amazingly complicated assemblies of frequency-specific mirrors and filters that can deal with wavelengths approaching X-rays. The resulting structures created on the chip use (and in some cases, compensate for) aspects of the behavior of electrons that look more like magic than considering the chip just a traditional circuit composed of really small wires and transistors.

Should we consider modern CPUs an entirely different product from those made 30 years ago? In this case, aside from the performance, ignoring the scale, manufacturing techniques, and how it actually "works", I would tend to say "no". But we also have a very low risk of exposure to the nanoscale structures on a modern CPU - For one thing, they come well-packaged inside a nice airtight ceramic or metal package; for another, they tend to remain firmly attached to the chip itself.


But when it comes to products we consume, we wear, we eat off, we might even breathe in (which seems like the problem with this particular spray)? I welcome the addition of these incredible products to the world, but would very much like to see them thoroughly tested for safety first.

For the spray in question, it seems like almost a no-brainer... They've taken sand and made it small enough to get trapped deep in the lungs, small enough that our bronchial cillia can't effectively remove them, and then it acts just like any other particle that makes it that deep into the lungs - It causes irritation, reduction in respiratory efficiency, and most likely eventual scarring and permanant damage. This doesn't require a new mechanism, just that in the normal macroscale world, even in particularly risky environments, we only encounter a minute number of such particles.

Re:could be very good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Should we consider modern CPUs an entirely different product from those made 30 years ago?

Of course. You're using the word "product" to refer to a type of product. Whereas I, and the person I was responding to, were using the word "product" to refer to a specific item being sold.

Think about it - you don't certify an entire type of product to be safe, do you? A company can't, say, get the idea of "shampoo" certified as safe, they need to get specific formulae certified as safe.

In the analogy you are drawing, you might ask - if the latest 3Ghz processors are certified to be Vista-compatible, surely 386's are certified too? After all, they are the same sort of thing only less advanced.

Re:could be very good...

[sjames]

It's unfortunate that a LOT more thought doesn't go into products that incorporate nanoscale particles. They probably shouldn't be in home use at all at this point. Many perfectly harmless products can become MUCH more harmful in the form of nano-particles. Further, typical masks and respirators aren't much help for particles that small. Certainly the filters used typically in a central heating/air system won't help.

Nano particles have a way of getting much deeper into a person than conventional aerosols. The conventional aerosol might penetrate a bit into the lung and be eliminated more or less harmlessly while the nanoparticles go right into the bloodstream and into all of the tissues including the brain. There are a lot of products that are definatly not non-toxic but may be used almost as if they were simply because no significant amount normally enters your system.

Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns,,

[blankoboy]

I have been wondering why it is that we only hear all the cool and jazzy things related to nano-technology but nothing to address the concerns regarding it. What about the 'grey goop' and the studies that showed the effects of nano particles on fish? Frightening to say the least.

Yet we are all more concerned with getting a 100GB Flash based ipod, cars and clothes that don't ever need to be washed, etc etc.....

Safey first? Bah, $$$ first...

repeat: Nano technology is evil!

[suv4x4]

First, the scratches and broken screens on iPod Nano and now this!

Time to register some nanotech-related domains

[mobby_6kl]

I'm sure the lawyers of the future would be eager to pay good money for them.

He Was Right!

[mrhale]

http://www.crichton-official.com/prey/index.html/

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[CRCulver]

I agree that safety isn't being considered here, but I sometimes wonder if it is possible to ensure complete safety regardless of how much effort one puts into it. Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation , an exhaustive exploration of the possibilities and risks of nanotechnology, speculates about a grey goo scenario where the exponential growth of out-of-control nanobots overtakes the world.

"Thus the first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of ten hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined - if the bottle of chemicals hadn't run dry long before."

I'm all for Man improving his lot and vanquishing the terrible forces of Nature with technological prowess, but possibilities like this make me consider becoming a Luddite.

September 2005

[Anonymous Coward]

that is when the governamenr started NIOSH prioject

since it is the firs: time it pops up in SlafhdIdt , I dare to Say that they are going to drag it as usual

Will Nano particles become the next asbestos?

[LiquidCoooled]

Allowing nano scale particulates to be released in the home seems like a foolhardy way to save a bit of time.
I like the principle of nano tech, especially in embedded applications (like within a ceramic chip casing) but spraying it around just screams of stupidity.

People should just clean their windows manually, a good cloth can be found here.

Nanotech = negative image

[Zouden]

I wonder how long until the word "nanotech" falls out of favour because it becomes associated with dangerous "science gone too far".

We aren't even nearly at the stage of nanomachines ("grey goop"), yet I imagine the public is beginning to feel that everything with the nano-prefix is dangerous. Soon companies and scientists will start using other words to describe the technology. This is fine with me - I actually think that a lot of "nanotechnology" could be better described with other words (same with AI).

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[zalas]

So, in other words, given enough bad publicity, "nanotech" ends up suffering the same fate as "nuclear"? Though, it would be interesting to see the nano equivalent of nukulear... "If I am elected president, I vow to stop all development of nay-no-tech technology!"

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly boy.
Magic Nano spray is powerfully cleansing, easy to apply, and "will benefit the environment, as treated surfaces can be cleaned without the use of detergents, specialist machines and copious amounts of water."

If there is any 'grey goop' around, a few squirts of Magic Nano will have it cleared up right away!

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[Anonymous Coward]

>
> yet I imagine the public is beginning to feel that everything
> with the nano-prefix is dangerous
>

The public don't read Slashdot and similar websites... For the general public, nanotechs still are really far... They just heard about it two or three times in the news... Ask a few people in the streets, most won't even be able to give you any example of use... they just remember "it is something very small"...

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[Anonymous Coward]

>
> given enough bad publicity, "nanotech" ends up suffering
> the same fate as "nuclear"?
>

What fate? Critiqued but always used more...? Sadly, nuclear centrals, nuclear weapons, etc. are here for long :/ ... probably as long as most people will believe the future is made of "new things" (if humankind hasn't disappeard until then -which wouldn't be surprising).

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[Alef]

We aren't even nearly at the stage of nanomachines ("grey goop")

I think you are referring to grey goo. (Which is an end-of-the-world scenario involving self-replicating nanomachines running amok, in case someone here didn't know that already.)

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[hotdiggitydawg]

As is the term "genetic engineering", but both that and "nuclear" have developed negative connotations over time from an initially positive standpoint. I think this is the point the grandparent was trying to make, and you seem to have missed.

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[UserGoogol]

Hmm. Maybe Nanotech needs an Asimov. I mean, the word "robot" was invented to refer to technology gone too far, and yet nowadays it's treated as something "pretty neat" and futuristic. We need someone willing to beat the shit out of the Frankenstein Complex.

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[khallow]

We haven't gotten a good anti-nanotech movie or a good nanotech scary accident yet. For example, the US nuclear industry got hammered by the movie "The China Syndrome" coming out at the same time that the Three Mile Island accident happened.

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[SnowZero]

Unfortunately, (at least in the US) Hollywood's view of robots is far more prevalent Asimov's. I work with robotics, and during any of our demos, it usually takes a minute or two before someone mentions either (1) "The Terminator" or (2) Battlebots/RobotWars. Most of our robots play soccer, along with other non-violent activities.

The only explanation I can think of is the bias from exposure to the "robots want to kill humans" view popular in movies. When one views human athletes, you normally don't ask if they are assasins or say "wouldn't it be cool if they fought to the death?"

Too bad the US didn't have a verion of Astro-Boy.

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[birge]

Quite the opposite. Everybody in science now knows that slapping the meaningless tag 'nano' in front of whatever you're doing will increase your chances of being funded by the lemmings who run the grant agencies. Of course, this applied to everybody since everything under the sun is made of small particles of SOMETHING and so the term is abused like a Hilton. It's really ridiculous. In the future, perhaps we'll have "Diamond Age"-like machines that are truly nanoscale but right now I think it's a bit contrived to talk about nanotechnology when all you mean is good 'ol materials science, which has ALWAYS been nanoscale in the sense that atoms and molecules haven't changed size.

Re:Nanotech = negative image

[Lehk228]

When one views human athletes, you normally don't ask if they are assasins or say "wouldn't it be cool if they fought to the death?"

Well maybe you don't.

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Kream]

Many here will remember Crichton's "Prey", a book that details a nanotech swarm gone mad, and "infesting" a woman to such a degree that her husband, the protagonist, does not realise at first.

A critique of this fearmongering...

"...gray goo would be very difficult to design. It would be far more complex than a car--probably more complex than the Space Shuttle. General Motors recently made headlines by taking only a few months to design a car. It's completely implausible that a failing company could create an evolving gray goo by re-engineering a specialized product in a matter of weeks; this same company couldn't even solve the relatively simple problem of keeping the swarm together in a breeze. Remember that the swarm-bots don't directly replicate; they are built by assemblers using bacterial chemicals. Among other tasks, the scientists would have had to rapidly invent a way to transfer the evolved program out of the successful swarm-bots and feed it back into the assemblers or the bacteria to produce the next generation. This would require a completely new set of molecular machinery."

Full critique available here

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[JaredOfEuropa]

At the end of ten hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion.

And then their "food" in the petri dish runs out, and the next morning a scientist takes care of the problem with a spray can of "Nano-b-gone". Don't lose any sleep over it... there are plenty of real dangers of nanotech to worry about, such as the one cited in the main article.

What i'm waiting for

[lucaq99]

I can't wait until i can get a nano iPod Nano. I wonder if that will be dangerous if inhaled...

Re:What i'm waiting for

[HermanAB]

iPod nano - just give a bunch to a creche of 3 year olds. Pretty soon, it will be inhaled, ingested and various other unspeakables...

Re:What i'm waiting for

[jmv]

It's OK, they have a label stating "for internal use only".

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me rephrase what you are saying:

Why don't we hear any bad stuff? What about bad stuff X and bad stuff Y?

Well doesn't your comment go to show that we do hear about the bad stuff? Otherwise your comment would be:

Why don't we hear any bad stuff? What about... um... um...

Definitely nanotech

[liquid stereo]

Believe it or not, but this is more nanotech than most of the "nanotech" that you hear/read about. I'm a scientist working in this area, and nanonparticles are not only one of the fundamental building blocks for nano-structured materials but are themselves the attention of scientists, researchers, and engineers working in a variety fields. They're useful for drug delivery, potential gene/protein delivery devices, biomedical imaging, paints, chemical/gas sensors, etc. They're also in all reconstituted orange juice. These concerns are real. Hyperbole and over-reaction on both sides doesn't serve the public.

Re:Definitely nanotech

[liquid stereo]

"Our fancy"

Using "our" is pretty provincial.

I'm not defending anyone or anything. All I'm saying is that the definition of "nanotech" is quite varied.

Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs

[XNormal]

Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs. Even the most benign materials. Our lungs are designed to breathe gas, not solids.

Nano is just the latest example of that.

Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs

[Spy der Mann]

Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs. Even the most benign materials. Our lungs are designed to breathe gas, not solids.

And this is why I wonder why the US keeps rejecting the Kyoto protocol. I'm not excusing nanotech, of course - we should be careful when handling that stuff.

Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs

[wes33]

Last I heard, air was *made* of nano-particles.
They are called molecules, and yes, some of them are dangerous.

Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs

[Salgak1]

Where does the Kyoto Protocol come in on this ? It's neither a global-warming gas nor an ozone-depleting substance...

Methinks you're barking up the wrong tree here. .

Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs

[chris_eineke]

Warning! Do not breathe iPod Nano!

Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs

[lgw]

Inhaling the Kyoto treay would hurt!

Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs

[Anonymous Coward]

Our lungs have protective mechanisms that protect them from ordinary particles. They don't work on extremely tiny particles. This is the problem. IMHO, this is a health issue like you'd have with any chemical - you identify the risks, you identify what it can be safely used for, and you identify any necessary precautions and medical treatments.

The Jason Blair Purge Technique

[Anonymous Coward]

1. There's a problem

2. Get rid of it

3. All is well

Or

1. A guy writes false stories

2. Insiders expose him to to world and fire him

3. Now that we've purged the bad, all is well. And here's the delivery: the NYTimes is an honest source of information once again, a totally bogus assumption.

Thus:

1. Nanotech gone awry

2. Fix the problem. Make some rules.

3. All is well with nanotech. Everything is under control.

Uh, yeah, but what about some ironclad laws banning the clandestine use of nanotech against humans? That's what the above technique is designed to avoid.

And in your zeal to defend your profession...

[Naruki]

You completely missed the idea of the question. The "nanotech" of our fancy is tiny computers, preferably self-replicating and/or interoperating with other nanotech devices, being capable of DOING things.

This is just being nano-particles whose natural properties are being exploited, but not being programmed to do things deliberately.

Thinking the question hyperbole is missing the point.

Re:And in your zeal to defend your profession...

[he-sk]

quoting the gp: They're useful for drug delivery, potential gene/protein delivery devices, biomedical imaging, paints, chemical/gas sensors, etc.

nano tech != star trek

Re:And in your zeal to defend your profession...

[lgw]

Your idea of nanotech will never exist outside of Star Trek. "Real nanotech" is the realm of chemistry, not mechanics, and nano-scale "robots" will do work by producing chemical catalysts that hook (or unhook) molecules together. Today those "robots" are called "cells" and the catalysts they produce are called "enzymes".

We may one day produce "nano robots" that are implemented differently than cells, but the principle will be the same. Realistically, we'll still use RNA to store the software, as we've put lots of work into tools to manipluate RNA already, and in most environments we'll have a cell wall built from lipids, and in general the "nano robot" will be very similar to a biological cell. After all, it's a proven and well-studied engineering design.

Borg spam

[Ritz_Just_Ritz]

I dunno. I look forward to getting my first spam hawking nanites that will migrate through my body and increase the size of my m4nh00d.

What does the warning label on the can say?

[TEMMiNK]

WARNING! Use of this product may cause side effects!
* Inhalation of this product may lead to the reconstitution of internal organs into basic geometric shapes.

But I mean.. thats ok right? At least they are telling you...

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

>
> [...] but I sometimes wonder if it is possible to ensure
> complete safety regardless of how much effort one puts into it.
>

There is no such thing as safety, as there is no such thing as certainty.

AFAIC, I would prefer living in a more simple world, without all this "high-technology" (like in all those Fantasy novels, but without the political problems), because I feel it is adding more and more uncertainty to the world.

Still, I work as a Webmaster, depending on computers for my living...

Silicosis

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the thing that would most worry me is long term exposure to a silica "nano" spray. If this really has small silica and silicon particles, long term use could lead to silicosis.

Re:Silicosis

[Spy der Mann]

In my humble opinion, products with nanoparticles shouldn't be allowed in spray presentations. Not only because of use, but because we're practically carrying chemical bombs into supermarkets. If a common spray explodes, well, there's the obvious physical (and maybe chemical) damage, but what happens if the products has nanoparticles? It could mean permanent damage with nanoparticles, who knows if this would result in cancer / silicosis / chronical lung damage / younameit.

Re:Silicosis

[Anonymous Coward]

IPF http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulmonary_fibrosis/is a horrible thing to watch someone try to live with. Imagine a 4-8 year strangulation. Also, note the inorganic causes, while not 100% assured of contraction from exposure, why risk it? Oh, and it's usually fatal within 5 years of diagnosis. The good news is that those with it are eligable for a lung transplant because it is not cancerious. The bad? Life expectancy for tranplant patients is average 5yrs, high end 10.

Re:Silicosis

[TavisJohn]

Exactly! They could use a much safer (And more profitable) pre-moistened toilette. It is disposable, and there is no airborne garbage to worry about!

Re:Silicosis

[HermanAB]

Silicoses must be extremely hard to catch though - there are lots of people living in deserts or near beaches, who don't get silicoses. More people die from coconuts falling on their heads than silicoses and bird flu combined?

Re:Silicosis

[Captain DaFt]

Actually, silicosis is a common disease in many parts of the world where dry, dusty conditions exist, and it has a long, long history;
  http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Silicosis+i n+mummies&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

Re:Silicosis

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but do they really die from the impact of the coconut, or do they catch bird flu from the swallow that dropped it...

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, this "grey goo" concern is very silly. If such a thing could occur it would have evolved.

It's bloody hard to eat rocks or metal and get energy out of them (required to reproduce).

Nanotech does offer the possibility of custom-designed, more effective flesh-eating-bacteria style nanobots, but so does genetic engineering and we'll likely get to that level with genetics before we do with nano assemblers. Assemblers are damn hard.

Nanotechnology is just a buzzword

[Pigeon451]

We've been using nanotech for years, the media and industry have decided that it's "cool" and hype it. Nanotech takes the crown away from microtechnology. In 20 years, picotech will be the next buzzword. :)

Re:Nanotechnology is just a buzzword

[iotaborg]

Well, 'pico' tech would essentially refer to the atomic/subatomic scale; we already have a word for that - Quantum.

Devilery method

[Timberwolf0122]

It would seem it was only the areosole that caused the re-action, my guess is that when spreyed via an areosole more of the nano-particles endup in the atmosphere in the cloud of atomised solution, where as a hand spray tends to have a larger droplet size and less nano material is left floating.

Still it makes for an interesting concern.

That's why we need space colonisation

[ElMiguel]

I'm serious. Sooner or later man will begin experimenting with technology where there is a real danger of unforeseen cascade effects accidentally destroying all life on Earth. If we're lucky the fatal accident will not happen, but I think the *risk* is unavoidable.

We're not at that technological point yet, but we're only getting closer. At least, we should make sure that if something goes badly humanity will not be completely wiped out.

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[Anonymous Coward]

>
> At least, we should make sure that if something goes badly
> humanity will not be completely wiped out.
> ... or *maybe* we should stop before that, think, and start a new society from the beginning, without all these problems... We don't need baka politics, psyops, RFID tags, VeriChip, nanotechs, junk food, going into space, developping weapons, armies, nuclear centrals, a polluted earth, etc. to be happy... I assure you.

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and while you're just believing in wild speculation, you ought to watch out for those newfangled picture-making devices. They will steal your soul!

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[lgw]

You're young enough to have not grown up Fearing The Bomb, aren't you? Never under your desk in a drill? Never heard the air-raid sirens tested weekly in your city?

Cascade effects destroying all life on Earth isn't some future worry, my young friend. Some of us grew up with it. You're far, far, safer now while there's only one nulear superpower, and the threat of accidental nuclear oblivion is, for the momemt, gone.

Meanwhile, the combined restrictions of conservation of energy and mutation make grey goo a non-issue. (Sure, it's quite possible to get energy from sunlight. Consider every creature you've even seen that does so. There's a reason they're the bottom of the food chain.)

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[ppanon]

You're young enough to have not grown up Fearing The Bomb, aren't you? Never under your desk in a drill? Never heard the air-raid sirens tested weekly in your city?
Maybe he's not, but I am. However, by the time I was old enough to be aware of the problem, the air-raid siren tests weren't being done anymore because we knew that it wouldn't help if a multi-megaton bomb got dropped on downtown.

Cascade effects destroying all life on Earth isn't some future worry, my young friend. Some of us grew up with it. You're far, far, safer now while there's only one nulear superpower, and the threat of accidental nuclear oblivion is, for the momemt, gone.
However currently it still takes the resources of a country to build the centrifuge cascades and other steps for refining enough plutonium to build a bomb. However to concoct a warfare-grade virus you need access to a well furnished university biomolecular laboratory. In another 30 years, that could be even more easily accessible, making it more likely that an unbalanced individual will build and release a species-destroying bug.

Or to put it another way, we've had 50 years of experience that nations and their governments are unlikely to start a nuclear war. In that same time, we've also seen a number of indviduals commit a number of multiple-murder suicides. If individuals obtain the power to wipe out the human population, then an extinction-event is merely a matter of scale with something that has happened multiple times in the last 50 years. Molecular nanotechnology or more advanced biotechnology tools could eventually become easily accessible enough to give anyone willing to spend N years studying access to that power.

Meanwhile, the combined restrictions of conservation of energy and mutation make grey goo a non-issue. (Sure, it's quite possible to get energy from sunlight. Consider every creature you've even seen that does so. There's a reason they're the bottom of the food chain.)
Anaerobic bacteria help break down all dead organic matter. We consider it a food chain because we're often at the top, but don't forget that it's really a circle. The circle could get a lot smaller if the bacteria are engineered to bypass/fool immune systems. To a certain extent, something similar to that happens with some so-called "flesh-eating" diseases, right? Evolution discourages the production of a parasite so efficient that it kills all its potential hosts. Human designers/bio hackers do not have any such limitations.

Personally, I agree with the OP. We need to get into space because having a lifeboat where someone will survive is the one thing that might make it less likely that some nihilist lunatic would release such a species-ending plague.

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[onebecoming]

Hi. I was born Japanese and raised Japanese by Japanese parents. Your spurious and gratuitous use of the word baka in your silly little rant pretty much tells me all I need to know about you.

Baka indeed.

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[ElMiguel]

I did say "unforeseen" effects "accidentally" destroying all human life. Nuclear weapons work as designed, nothing unforeseen about them. An all-out nuclear confrontation might wipe out humanity (although I have serious doubts about that), but that could hardly be called accidental.

No, what I'm more worried about is bleeding edge commercial or academic research, as by its own nature it involves manipulation of imperfectly understood principles in a competitive environment where safety is not always the top priority. Accidents *will* happen, and some will be serious; it's pure statistics.

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[Cro Magnon]

I agree. We need to get ourselves into space so mankind can survive planetary catastrophe. Fortunately, I've been working on this real kewl antimatter engine and - OOPS!

Re:That's why we need space colonisation

[lgw]

BTW, the big worry during the Cold War *was* accidental destruction. Any time you line up opposing forces and arm them, it's only a matter of time before someone sneezes, some psycotic just starts shooting at random, etc. The system was very very dangerous even if no one ever *intended* to use it destructively. I'm still amazed we made it through unnuked.

But thus far academic research has proven completely unproblematic. While I'm certainly glad there are safeguards in place in biological testing, if you're genuinely worried about completely hypothetical problems, you could probably spend your time better. Or at least become a safety engineer and get paid to worry - either is good.

Pledge polish can cause chemical pneumonia

[Anonymous Coward]

If you inhale it while you're dusting the furniture. I suspect this "nanotech" problem may be similar. There is lots of stuff already out there that can cause problems if the stuff gets in your lungs.

New nano risk!

[NixLuver]

There is a nanoparticle produced by many modern devices that is deadly to humans. In concentrations as low as 1600ppm, it can cause death in two hours or less, and it's only TWO ATOMS ACROSS! It's called, oddly enough, "CO", and it's colorless, tasteless, and odorless. The FDA should require nano-labels on each nanodangerous nanoparticle! They are putting us at risk every day!

TFA says that nobody involved knows if the product *actually* contains 'nano technology'... It's chemistry, peeps... I doubt this stuff is assembled with SEMs. Really!

Re:New nano risk!

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt this stuff is assembled with SEMs.

If you mean Scanning Electron Microscopes with that, I doubt it too. These instruments are generally used just to look at things.

That'd make a great slogan

[TubeSteak]

Say no to nay-no-tech!

Sheep bleet because they can.

Early Adopters have more fun

[sammyo]

Late Adopotors live longer.

Re:Early Adopters have more fun

[solitas]

Um, aren't late Adopotors [sic], by definition, dead?

So you're telling me...

[Anonymous Coward]

That they made a silicon/silica nanoparticle aerosol spray and didn't think it would hurt anyone?? Ever heard of pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis?

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Autochthonous Lagomo]

This has long been considered to be an overly drastic and highly unlikely doomsday scenario, fit more for science fiction than scientific speculation.

Just like 'robots will take over the world,' as you have mentioned, the idea of 'grey goo' is just a form of Ludditism. Obviously you've gotten over the irrational fear that your computer will rise up and take over the world with AI, so it's time to do the same with such antiquated prejudices about newer technologies that you can't understand as easily.

Silicone

[mentaldingo]

"Silicone," eh?
You need to keep abreast of your spelling!

Re:Silicone

[Anonymous Coward]

> "Silicone," eh? You need to keep abreast of your spelling!

Indeed. The "Silicon Valley" is Santa Clara Valley. The "Silicone Valley" is San Fernando!

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

>Really, this "grey goo" concern is very silly. If such a thing could occur it
>would have evolved.

Right! Because if rocket engines were possible, they would have evolved. No wait...

Artificial structures can do things that nature can't because they are not bound by the constraints of evolution. Evolution is limited to proteins and genes, and can only move through continously working phase space. It's that irreducible complexity thing that Intelligent Design propnents speak about. Evolution or no evolution, nanomachines will be designed. Hopefully intelligently, although I have my doubts.

>It's bloody hard to eat rocks or metal and get energy out of them (required to
>reproduce).

This is, of course, Slashdot, but if you ever go outside and it happens to be a day you might notice this big ball of gases undergoing fusion reaction, ie. The Sun. This is an energy source right there.

Vocabulary?

[Remedy_man]

It amazes me when people try to act so smart, and then make a error like using the word "air" instead of "err". If you can't tell the difference between those two words how can we really think you are competent enough to talk about Nano-sized technologies.

Re:Vocabulary?

[Anonymous Coward]

You just ended a question with a period. Oh my, hypocrisy abounds.

Vas ist los?

[craXORjack]

Ich sprayen die "Nano Magic" ohnen die stain und zuddenly ze bottel becommen part auf mein handen! Und mein monocle fuzen to meinen eye zocket! Was ist happenung to mir? Und die voices. Where kommen sie frommen? Und vas ist dies "Kollectiv"? Stoppen mit die sprechen voicen! Nein, nein, Ich nicht funf von sieben! Gott in Himmel, ich must kontacten diese authorities schnell...

Re:Vas ist los?

[Kuscheltier]

Would anyone mind to enlighten me how spraying random german words became the latest trend on /. ?

Re:Vas ist los?

[Anonymous Coward]

It came from the Blinkenlights. I read somewhere that it started at MIT after the war when the US was examining all the captured German war toys that never came on-line in time. Maybe someone else knows more about it.

Re:Vas ist los?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is singlehandledly one of the funniest damn things I have ever read. Wow.

Bravo. Really, bravo!

Re:Vas ist los?

[iNetRunner]

But that was such a great mix of German and German like "English" words that it was truly funny! Though I happen to know some German so I can't really tell how understandable that was to a person who doesn't understand a word of German. And no I haven't seen that too much on /. So no trend there? And if it is, then that at least was perfectly executed..

Re:Vas ist los?

[Kuscheltier]

At least its hard to understand if german is your first language. :)

Re:Vas ist los?

[iNetRunner]

I suppose that might be. Though I'm sure it might be impossible to understand if you didn't know some basic German words.. That text had quite a lot of them. Outsiders perhaps understand somewhat better misspoken language. (Though at least dialects are worse if you are an outsider.)

so much for my new product...

[monopole]

...simple green goo

Prey was a stupid book

[tjstork]

Come on, you had this guy getting chased by this "nano-cloud". I read that and I was immediately reminded of 50's era atomic test monster movies.

Re:Prey was a stupid book

[Isotopian]

Well, it was a fiction book. Doesn't mean it was stupid, perhaps just unrealistic.

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

> Just like 'robots will take over the world,' as you have mentioned, the idea of 'grey goo' is just a form of Ludditism.
> Obviously you've gotten over the irrational fear that your computer will rise up and take over the world with AI, so
> it's time to do the same with such antiquated prejudices about newer technologies that you can't understand as easily.

Exactly, there's nothing to be alarmed at. Please go back to your normal shopping...

And if you're still reading, consider all the other fears of the past that have turned out to be completely unfounded like global warming, population bomb, lack of drinking water and pollution. See, all of these concerns are provably false as well. Well, as long as proof just means "we're not all dead yet".

Preview Preview preevue!

[WinPimp2K]

respirable asbestos fibers are three to twenty METERS in diameter?

0.01 meters = 1 centimeter, not 10 namometers.

I'm guessing you were referring to micrometers, but if you had previewed you might have realized your mistake (7-10 orders of magnitude?) in trying to use formatting commands.

Your point and others about this spray not being nanotech is absolutley correct.

As for those who dismiss the idea that the problem may be related to the aerosol even though no problems were reported with the pump version, your blind faith in Ludd has been recopgnized. I hereby grant you the rank of Private in the Barbie Brigade ("Math is hard" platoon). If you will state a conclusion in direct opposition to facts plain enough for even you to state them clearly, then you will continue to allow your betters to think for you.("betters" in the purely feudal sense by the way).

Now, if you had instead said something like:

Although all of the reports have been from users of the aerosol product and none yet from the pump product, there should be further study to make sure that the problem is caused by the aerosol. If the actual problem does turn out to be inhaled nano particles, then the aerosol delivery system may be accelerating the onset of symptoms by increasing the concentration of inhalable nanoparticles when they are applied. Once applied, nanoparticles may be released back into the air over time. One possible delayed release method would be shockwaves propogated through the material the product is sprayed on. Such as a door closing. A good experiment would be to lock the marketers of the "nano spray" in a room liberally treated with their product and then subject the walls of that room to multiple shockwave effects (beating on the walls, slamming the doors repeatedly, and maybe playing loud music with a very heavy bass component).

One might also repeat the experiment with the manufacturers of the spray. To determine the "placebo" effect, run two more blind tests with nano-protestors - one group exposed to the nano spray and one group exposed to pine-scented air freshener.

Re:Preview Preview preevue!

[onebecoming]

Slashcode doesn't let you post with the symbol for micro (mu, the one that looks like "u") and, what's worse, doesn't warn you before stripping it out. That's why open-source code is friendly, kids!

Nothing a brickbat wouldn't solve

[gregor-e]

We just need to persuade journalists that wherever they see "nano", they should simply replace it with "chemical". Okay, that might cause some consternation when reporting on the iPod model, but I say that's a small price to pay for more accurate reporting the other 99.9% of the time. Until controlled-assembly Molecular Nano Technology (MNT) comes along, there's no point distinguishing nano-meter-sized chemicals from, uh, chemicals.

This is still all just hype

[argoff]

The truth still is that there are a lot of huge entrenched industries that see nanotech as a competitive threat and are desperate to regulate it before it eats into their revenue stream. Just ignore this, it is just another trumpet horning in the wind. It is just another excuse looking for a problem to regulate. Compaired to the potential benefits that nanotech has to offer, problems like these are like the hairline scratch on a 3 ton statue of gold. The nano age is here to stay like it or not.

There's a crucial flaw in that logic

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

Where the hell is the nanotech going to procure the energy and materials to duplicate itself that fast? THAT will definitely limit it.

Melamine foam?

[mmontour]

A related question (though at micron scales rather than nano) - does anyone know how safe those "magic eraser" cleaning sponges are? They are an open-cell melamine foam that gradually breaks down as it is used.

I don't know the size of the particles that break off and get washed down the drain, but given the hardness of the material it seems that they could be hazardous to anything that ingested them (filter-feeding aquatic organisms, fish's gills, and so on). Does anyone know if there have been studies to see how far these particles get in the environment, how long it takes them to break down chemically, etc?

Re:Melamine foam?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are lots of macro fibers already in the environment. I don't see how these are different. They are ejected just like any other. The problem with smaller fibers (asbestos) is that we didn't evolve with them and there is no process for removing them from our bodies.

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[DRJlaw]

Eric Drexler's Engines of Creation , an exhaustive exploration of the possibilities and risks of nanotechnology, speculates about a grey goo scenario where the exponential growth of out-of-control nanobots overtakes the world.

"Thus the first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of ten hours, there are not thirty-six new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined - if the bottle of chemicals hadn't run dry long before."

We already have nanomachines that replicate themselves every 1000 seconds or less (that's a doubling time of roughly 17 minutes). They're called bacteria. We use them to treat sewage, alter milk into cheese, and produce synthetic insulin feedstock, along with several thousand other uses. Some of these applications have been in existence for most of recorded history. Startlingly, the Earth has not been converted into bacteria.

The Grey Goo argument is an interesting layman's theory that falls apart if you give it any real thought. You cannot build a self-replicating machine out of simply anything. The machine will rely on critical "nutrients", whether they are nitrogen, phosphorous, or copper, that simply aren't available in large quantities in much of the environment. The machine will also require a readily available energy source, which ultimately means solar power since life does a reasonable job of exhausting chemical based energy sources on the surface of the planet.

Face it, evolution favors favors fast replication, efficient resource utilization, and wide geographic distribution. In four billion years, using technology that we can just barely duplicate (mostly by scavenging parts from nature), evolution has created -- TADA! -- algae and pseudomonas (for example). The last time I checked, these self replicating micromachines weren't threatening to turn my house into more algae and pseudomonas at any significant rate.

Grey goo is a nice science fiction story, but frankly it's never going to happen. If you want to fear deadly self-replicating nanomachines bringing an end to civilization, then you need to focus on infectious diseases (mostly viruses) like the rest of the highly educated public.

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[sjames]

A key to safety here is to make sure that the nanomachines require some substance not found in nature to remain active and/or that some common enough substance that IS found abundantly in nature acts as a poison to them. Also, they must NOT be allowed to alter their own design or evolutionary forces will overcome 'problems' like those as well as the 'problem' of having to do useful things rather than just replicate.

Back in my day...

[JumperCable]

We called today's version of Nanotech chemistry. I think the term still applies.

Old News is New News is Old News

[NeuroManson]

It's surprising this is suddenly receiving attention in the mainstream. Does anyone recall the report about 5 years ago, about how carbon fullerenes (and possibly nanotubes) proved fatal to fish?

Ah, just googled it, here's one of the many hits:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4825

Risk with New Tech

[loyukfai]

It's IMO that risk often, if not always, comes with using new tech. So long as it doesn't cause a run-away disaster, I think it will be fine in the long term.

However, it seems that nanotech, and also DNA engineering, are easier to get out of control that previous new tech.

A bit of background on this

[Solipson]

Actually the company who sold the products which caused the problems, Kleinmann GmbH (http://www.kleinmann.net/), seems to have no experience with this type of technology. They just bought the raw solution from one of the few manufacturers out there, Nanopool (http://www.nanopool.biz/) and rebranded/repackaged the stuff. Unfortunately it seems their new packaging created a near lethal combination of aerosol, anti-corrosion coating and said nano-particles. (http://www.stiftung-warentest.de/online/haus_gart en/meldung/1366981/1366981.html)(German only)

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

Bet you can't find a square inch of habitable space on the planet that doesn't contain bacteria without special precautions though...

Ahem.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideally.

It's NOT Nanotech

[eno2001]

And it won't be until these particles have intelligence. Calling this kind of crap nanotech is like calling a lump of silica a "computer". Geezus marketroids are idiots!

Big suprise

[boriquajake]

You know all those stories where somebody in an office building or a school thinks they smell gas and before you know it 15 people are taken to the hospital because they got sick? Inevitably it turns out that somebody farted and all the losers puking up their lunch were just hypochondriacs that were highly open to suggestion. All it takes is for stupid people to suspect there is some sort of a threat and 10 minutes later they are being taken to the hospital. Why do you think that morons getting the placebo in drug studies invariable come down with "side effects"? This is probably another example of hysterical, unemployed eurpean luddites freaking out over nothing.

Possible dangers of nanoparticles

[Apa]

I recently heard of research showing that nanoparticles (that is, particle of nanoscale size) can penetrate the blood brain barrier among other things. Aparently they can also enter the body trough the skin and lungs and interact with cells in previously unseen ways etc. That mean great posibilties for new medicines etc of course, but it would also sugest a posibility for serious healt hazards...

http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-8350-f0.cfm
http://www.technologyreview.com/Materials/wtr_15 847,318,p1.html

Oblig Seinfeld...

[Aqua_boy17]

Silicosis?
Is that anything like uromysotisis?

Nano-abrasives in aerosol = Bad Idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, I can't believe that this idea ever got as far as manufacture...of course it will cause health problems if you inhale it!

I can see how something like this might have applications in weapons or industrial technology, but it is totally inappropriate as an aerosol household cleaner.

Somebody deserves to get sued over this.

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting that you used evolution as an argument against out-of-control Nanobots; evolution prevents organisms from replicating too fast, as the ones that do so end up eating all the available food and die. That's why cells are programmed to die off after a certain time, so they can replicate themselves quickly and not have to worry about overpopulation as much. But if we humans were to create self-replicating nanobots, none of this evolution stuff need apply. Being designed, things like programmed death could be left out and they don't have to need to be fed all the time to survive.

Not that I don't agree with your position that "Grey Goo" is just science fiction, just on how it relates to evolution.

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[mrthoughtful]

"life does a reasonable job of exhausting chemical based energy sources" - literally. One of the best chemical-based energy sources on this planet is oxygen, all of which is what was originally toxic 'exhaust' excreted by the early phases of life on this planet. Life adapts, and turned this toxin into a great energy-source, especially tied to sunlight.

The raw materials for our kind of life are pretty simple- Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and power (normally the sun). If (I know, it's a huge if) nanoreplicators were able to decompose molecules constructed of these three elements, and recompose themselves using those three with maybe the odd bit of other stuff, then grey goo is a possibility. It would pretty quickly strip life as we know it off the surface of the planet.

Of course, one would need to develop a general purpose organic molecule decomposition department for the self-replicator, which is some pretty neat kit. Of course, biology doesn't bother - there's enough specialised 'food' for survival around - you can't move for energy sources as a bacteria, and adaptation has managed to stay one step ahead of supply, otherwise we would be extinct.

So, I disagree that 'grey goo' falls apart with the parent's argument: Nanotech can find plenty of raw materials that would devastate life - if those materials are primarily O/H/C - implementing oxygen as a secondary (chemical) energy source, just as most life does right now. Nanotech replicators may not have the same limitations as bacteria or virii; I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm certainly not going to state it as impossible or that it's never going to happen. Life as we know it hangs by a thread.

Of course, anyone who walks in fear of the impending grey goo should re-evaluate their own mental health. One may as well walk in fear of accidental teleportation accidents.

Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns

[Anonymous Coward]

"evolution prevents organisms from replicating too fast, as the ones that do so end up eating all the available food and die. That's why cells are programmed to die off after a certain time, so they can replicate themselves quickly and not have to worry about overpopulation as much."

Uh... No. Cells in humans and other animals are programmed to die to prevent cancer (except for reproductive cells, for obvious reasons). Single celled organisms (which are the organisms that you need to compare nanites to) reproduce by splitting in half - there are *two* daughter cells and *no* parent cell is left to a programmed death.

"Being designed," ...

There are limits to design - the same limits as there are to life. You have the benefit of building with an end goal in mind and can leave out a lot of stuff that would probably be included if it had evolved (although there are some very simple viruses out there), but that's it. You still need nutrients and energy, you still need it to be able to survive attacks from the environment and other organisms, and you still need it to be able to replicate itself out of resources that are likely to be found outside your evil genious lair. ... "things like programmed death could be left out " ...

See above. A single celled organism has no incentive to have a preprogrammed death because it's not simply a support mechanism for a specialized sex cell (which is basically what all multicellular animals are). ... "and they don't have to need to be fed all the time to survive."

What's a spore?