The day’s nanotech news in nanosized bites:
Kardashian Deficit Disorder: If only nanotech news had some curves, would the public know more about risks? Turns out, journalists who used to do a great deal of nanotech reporting in the mid-2000s are no longer working. Yep. I could have told you that. The New Haven Independent reports
Speaking of Nanotech Risks … Anti-nanotech activitsts like to talk endlessly about “uncertainty” regarding nanoparticles in sunscreen. Well, a new study makes it a bit more certain that no harm is actually done. “Nanoparticles did not penetrate beneath the outermost layer of cells …” This undercuts one of the main objections to nanotech in consumer products. But, unfortunately, facts rarely interfere with the agendas of those who peddle fear. More at Eurekalert
Rise of the Nanomachines: I, for one, will welcome our new nanobot overlords … if we ever get around to building them. News release on Nanotechnology Now
Watching the (nano)tube: Researchers hit the “print” button to create low-cost carbon-nanotube display screens. More here
Speaking of Nanotubes, they Suck … They can suck up CO2. A portable nanotube carbon-dioxide sucker could take care of high CO2 levels in the atmosphere, especially in areas such as big cities, where trees are rare. More in The Engineer
Nano May Make Battery Recycling Attractive: Research into recovering nanoparticles from old batteries “will appeal to environmental nanotechnologists who should see this as an opportunity to turn recycling of electronic waste into an economically beneficial proposition for industry. Michael Berger at Nanowerk reports
Wait…isn’t that kind of information overload just like a “Blipvert?”
/Sound of head exploding…
Blipvert? Heh, now I need to dig out the Max Headroom DVD set.
People who are screaming about nanotechnology risk are most often doing so because selling fear about technology is how they earn their living. Billion dollar industries, lucrative “activist” organizations and a lot of political careers rest on selling the idea that modern technology is killing people in mass.
Prior to the 60s, the world’s Leftist were technophiles who based their claim to power on the assertion that they could provide the benefits of industrialization to the “masses” quicker and more fairly than the free-market could. By the late 60s it became clear that socialism was a productive flop and that capitalism produced far more material benefit to ordinary people than did socialism. Without missing a beat, Leftists switched gears, ditched technophilia and became technophobes arguing that modern technology was going to kill us all unless the benevolent, leftwing state restricted the material abundance of capitalism.
Fear of technology is one of the primary selling points of modern Leftists. They won’t pass up any opportunity to sow fear of bright new technology like nanotechnology. Few remember today but back in the 70s, leftists were strongly anti-computer. We are lucking that few politicians of any stripe recognized the potential of personal computers or the internet. Otherwise, we would have been subjected to a fear campaign about the horrific dangers of the Apple II.
Well, that might have spared the world the Apple III, which actually was a bit dangerous. In order to be quiet and have a sleeker appearance, it was designed without fans or air vents, relying on internal heatsinks to keep it cool. They didn’t. Cooked quite a few chips and disks, although I don’t think there were any cases where it actually caught on fire, so it did have that over the Volt.
The true institutional fear of nano-tech is that it has the potential to provide anything to anybody at virtually no cost. This concept of “personal manufacturing” undermines so many others perceived livelihoods that it guarantees a violent reaction. After all, if self-replicating programmable disassemblers/assemblers become ubiquitous (the ultimate goal), everyone can have a hole in the backyard that they dump garbage into, and in a year or so a gleaming new Mercedes sports car pops out of it.
In that sort of economy, opponents believe, the only ones who have jobs are those who program the nano particles… and everyone else has nothing to offer.
The reality, of course, is not so simplistic (for example, in such an environment *excellent* personal service might suddenly be as sought after and highly compensated as genius brain surgeons are today) – humanity has and always will dynamically adapt to both the natural environment and that of our own creation… but that reality won’t stop those who are unable to see this from opposing a new technology.
The “buggy-whip makers” of today will fight nanotech… and still lose. What damage they do before they finally lose is the question we must consider and respond to.
-MJ