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."

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.

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:Nanotech?

[Maset]

Have they never heard of silicosis?

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. :)

Early Adopters have more fun

[sammyo]

Late Adopotors live longer.

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?

[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.