NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: There’s good news and bad news. First, the bad news:
Government officials in Germany have reported what appears to be the first health-related recall of a nanotechnology product, raising a potential public perception problem for the rapidly growing but still poorly understood field of science.
At least 77 people reported severe respiratory problems over a one-week period at the end of March — including six who were hospitalized with pulmonary edema, or fluid in the lungs — after using a “Magic Nano” bathroom cleansing product, according to the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment in Berlin.
Of course, read further down and you encounter this:
Michael Holman, an analyst at Lux Research in New York, which tracks the industry, said the spray may even be one of many products that lack engineered nanoparticles but claim to be “nano” for high-tech appeal. Even so, he said, “this is certainly a cautionary tale from a public perception standpoint.”
Well, yes. Of course, as I’ve noted before, the industry’s shortsighted PR policy is directly responsible for those perceptions.
On the other hand, here’s some good news:
Tiny particles of gold could soon be helping to spot viruses, bacteria and toxins used by bio-terrorists. Researchers in the UK have found that gold nanoparticles are very effective detectors of biological toxins.
The particles reveal the presence of poisons far faster than existing techniques which often involve shipping samples back to a lab.
Neither of these involves the kind of thing most of us mean when we talk about nanotechnology — nothing Drexlerian here. In the taxonomy I set out a while ago, the first example is “fake” nanotechnology, and the second is “simple” nanotechnology. We’re a long way from the “major” variety, much less the “spooky” stuff that the industry was afraid would scare people. Of course, by downplaying the more advanced nanotechnology, the industry just made public perceptions about the fake stuff more significant. They seem to be a bit smarter about that now, but unfortunately considerable damage has already been done.