Nanotech Gone Awry? 173
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."
Nanotech? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:4, Interesting)
Aaah, definition games. Fun.
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2, Informative)
You've watched too much StarGate.
From Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
*"Nanotechnology" had been used at least once before Drexler, but the term was not
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:1, Flamebait)
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
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:3, Informative)
As for the dangers of the current genetically modified food; we really can't tell. It isn't as if all types of geneticall
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:2)
Nope. They are herbicide resistant, so you can spray RoundUp herbicide on them without killing them.
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
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
Re:Nanotech? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
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. Ano
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
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 [i-sis.org.uk]
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
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? (Score:2)
"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.
Re:Nanotech? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:2)
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? (Score:4, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2, Informative)
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 inv
Preview Preview preevue! (Score:3, Informative)
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, you
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Silicone (Score:1)
You need to keep abreast of your spelling!
Definitely nanotech (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Definitely nanotech (Score:1)
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.
Re:And in your zeal to defend your profession... (Score:2)
nano tech != star trek
Re:And in your zeal to defend your profession... (Score:2)
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 pu
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
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 ac
Re:Nanotech? (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech? (Score:2)
could be very good... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:could be very good... (Score:1, Interesting)
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... (Score:2)
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 mi
Re:could be very good... (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns,, (Score:2, Informative)
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...
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns (Score:2, Informative)
A critique of this fearmongering...
Prey was a stupid book (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns (Score:4, Interesting)
That's why we need space colonisation (Score:2, Interesting)
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 (Score:2)
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
Re:That's why we need space colonisation (Score:2)
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:That's why we need space colonisation (Score:2)
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
Re:That's why we need space colonisation (Score:2)
But thus far academic research has proven completely unproblematic. While I'm certainly glad there are safeguards in place in biological testing, if y
Re:That's why we need space colonisation (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns (Score:1)
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.
There's a crucial flaw in that logic (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:2)
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
Re:Nanotech bounding forth with no safety concerns (Score:2)
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.
repeat: Nano technology is evil! (Score:5, Funny)
Time to register some nanotech-related domains (Score:2)
He Was Right! (Score:1)
Will Nano particles become the next asbestos? (Score:2, Interesting)
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 [ubuntu.com].
Nanotech = negative image (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:2)
That'd make a great slogan (Score:2)
Sheep bleet because they can.
Re:Nanotech = negative image (Score:1)
Re:Nanotech = negative image (Score:2)
I think you are referring to grey goo [wikipedia.org]. (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 (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech = negative image (Score:2)
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
Re:Nanotech = negative image (Score:2)
Well maybe you don't.
Re:Nanotech = negative image (Score:2)
Re:Nanotech = negative image (Score:2)
What i'm waiting for (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What i'm waiting for (Score:2)
Re:What i'm waiting for (Score:2)
Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs (Score:5, Insightful)
Nano is just the latest example of that.
Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
Methinks you're barking up the wrong tree here. .
Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs (Score:2)
Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs (Score:1)
They are called molecules, and yes, some of them are dangerous.
Re:Any particulate is potentially harmful to lungs (Score:2)
Borg spam (Score:3, Funny)
What does the warning label on the can say? (Score:5, Funny)
* 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...
Nanotechnology is just a buzzword (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nanotechnology is just a buzzword (Score:1)
Devilery method (Score:1)
Still it makes for an interesting concern.
New nano risk! (Score:4, Funny)
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!
Early Adopters have more fun (Score:3, Insightful)
Vas ist los? (Score:5, Funny)
so much for my new product... (Score:2)
Nothing a brickbat wouldn't solve (Score:2)
This is still all just hype (Score:3, Informative)
Melamine foam? (Score:2)
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 s
Old News is New News is Old News (Score:2)
Ah, just googled it, here's one of the many hits:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4825 [newscientist.com]
Possible dangers of nanoparticles (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-8350-f0.cfm
http://www.technologyreview.com/Materials/wtr_1 5 847,318,p1.html
Re:Silicosis (Score:2)
Re:Silicosis (Score:1)
Re:Silicosis (Score:2)