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Graphene Could Be Dangerous To Humans and the Environment
Zothecula (1870348) writes "It's easy to get carried away when you start talking about graphene. Its properties hold the promise of outright technological revolution in so many fields that it has been called a wonder material. Two recent studies, however, give us a less than rosy angle. In the first, a team of biologists, engineers and material scientists at Brown University examined graphene's potential toxicity in human cells. Another study by a team from University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering examined how graphene oxide nanoparticles might interact with the environment if they found their way into surface or ground water sources."
Ever since I first heard about the idea of grey goo, I've always wondered why no-one realises that grey goo already exists: they're called bacteria and viruses. They reproduce unchecked, can have catastrophic consequences for all other forms of life, and are largely carbon-based nano-machines.
The idea of self-replicating small entities is the same, but that bacteria is micrometer scale not nanoscale aside, the difference is the scenario where gray goo consume everything. Virus replicate only within living cells, and most of them in a non-deadly (even if somewhat harmful) symbiosis with the host. Grey goo nano-machines consume raw materials, not only us, but all the stuff around us (including what we try to contain them with).
Dihydrogen monoxide, hydrogen hydroxide, hydroxylic acid, etc. are all humorous names for the abundant compound oxidane. In solid phase it's also called ice, in liquid phase it's water, and in gas phase it's steam. It doesn't have the same sort of allotropic variation as elemental carbon.