Should Nanotech Be Regulated?

Memorize writes "Josh Wolfe writes an article in Forbes arguing that it is too early to regulate nanotech. Wolfe is worried that the 'green gang' (his term for environmentalists) are going to regulate nanotech out of existence before the technology even works in the lab. It seems like much of the discussion of nanotech is hype, including the potential benefits, such as immortality and the potential dangers such as grey goo. However, nanotech does hold some promise of environmental benefits such as cheap solar power. Are the risks real, and if so, is it worth the risk?" From the article: "There are rumblings that regulations are needed. They say they want to guarantee the safety of the technology and instill confidence in the general public."

Regulating soot

[DaleBob]

CNTs and buckyballs are just forms of soot. You can find them in any fireplace. So whatever regulations are on soot emissions to the atmosphere, they should be applied to CNTs as well.

Re:Wide Societal Debate

[Anonymous Coward]

The quote is not actually advocating taking the debate out of the hands of experts and putting it into the hands of anyone who feels like contributing. The quote is advocating bringing additional experts from other areas into the debate. In other words, as the quote states, the debate "can't be confined to technical issues alone", or even "to only focus on environmental and health issues". The quote is saying "let's look at this from all angles". It is not saying "let's let any moron decide and ignore the experts".

Re:bullshit article about non-existent problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That's precicely the problem with this article. Like so many others, it uses "nanotech" as a field. Nanotech is not a field, it's just a bunch of little things.

As a materials engineer, there are various things of various scales to work with, and some of them are labeled in that scary "nano" area, for good reason: they are on the scale of nanometers.

The "nanotech" mentality is equivilent to suggesting that all technology which uses components of a certain size is dangerous.

Why not "megatech" bans? I'd sure hate to be crushed by some of that.

Too late.

[abb3w]

I recall seeing a citation that many firms (especially outside the US) were using the health and materials safety data for graphite for CNTs, since nothing specific for carbon nanotubes existed. I've found at least one CNT data sheet [yahoo.com] online, but therein the phrase "TO THE BEST OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, THE CHEMICAL, PHYSICAL, AND TOXICOLOGICAL PROPERTIES HAVE NOT BEEN THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED" raises alarm bells for me at least.

Nanomaterials are weird. Gold metal and even sub-hair thin wires are fairly inert; but nanodivide it, and it becomes highly reactive and much more toxic than lead. And we're putting nanocrystal zinc oxide into sunscreens these days. I'll use it anyway-- with my skin and family history, melanoma is the bigger risk. But nanomaterials exposure is already happening.

Nanotechnology is nanomaterials

[obiquity]

There is a common misconception about nanotechnology that even /. editors are not immune to. I suppose this has to do with the fact that nanotechnology has morphed over the years into a discpline that has very little to do with "nanofabrication" and nanomachines, areas in which research has slowed substantially since the early 90s.

Rather, most academic research is now geared towards the production of highly controlled materials at the nano-scale. Nanoparticulate metals and oxides have tons of applications but almost none of them are nano machines. Rather, this work has become advanced form of materials chemistry and physics, designing regular surface features or particles. For this reason, nano-materials are not going to be much more dangerous than normal materials in the big picture. Nano-disperse carbon, which is sometimes called *smoke* or soot, is probably just as toxic as bucky-balls.

An interesting issue is: why have researches have abandoned nano-machines? I think it has to do with the fact that we already know how to build them. There's technology that has a great track record and can do almost anything you'd like at the nano and sub nano scale. They're called *enzymes* and recent enzyme engineering advances have made many nano-related tasks kind of superfluous. Also there are viruses and bacteria(maybe) that range into the nano-scale as well. So I think it boils down to a "why bother" issue with nano machines.

Of course I *might* be biased given my chosen area of research. I'm a chem. Prof investigating enzyme and bacteria engineering. Nah, I'm not biased.....

Re:Regulating soot

[DaleBob]

If you read the first post in the thread, you'll see this was about the inhalation danger of carbon nanoparticles, not drug delivery. Using nanoparticles for drug delivery is A LOT different than unintentionally inhaling them.

I also never said that soot is harmless (remember the bit about emphysema?), there is all kinds of legislation to reduce carbon emissions from factories and, yes, even fireplaces. So, maybe the point is that the government has already started regulating carbon nanoparticles without even realizing it. Also, there is a ton of data on the effects of soot inhalation that could help us predict the effects of inhaling pure CNTs or buckyballs.

Plus, carbon nanoparticles are just this tiny little part of all the kinds of nanotech that'll be happening anyway... and inhaling them is obviously only a part of the danger.

This kind of legislation is not about freaking out about key words; it's about understanding the issues and problems and addressing them in a responsible way.

Grey goo is impossible

[Julian Morrison]

...for the same reason you don't fear the bacterial equivalent. Fuel energy is scarce, as are vital resources, so the search for food takes up approximately 100% of a small organism's time and effort.

For nano to be useful it will either have to be in a food-rich environment (eg: inside the human body) or else plug into the power socket in the wall. Grey goo (were such a thing invented) would munch through the power cord, and just stop.

From one of environmental researchers...

[deuist]

I don't know how many people will read this comment (my karma is pretty low), but I work on a toxicology project where we're examining the effects of nanoparticles on cell cultures and, in some case, we also perform animal studies. Let me the first to say that no nanotox studies have ever been performed on large mammals or humans. The best data we have so far comes from in vitro cell cultures, fish, or rats. Therefore, we don't know the true impact that these materials will have on humans. Further, much of the research is inconsistent and all over the place. In our lab we show that nano aluminum (a common ingredient in making military weapons) will kill lung cells in a Petri dish. However, when we force rats to inhale these same particles, we cannot measure an inflammatory response, much less a toxic effect. Unfortunately, extremists from the environmentalist camp (i.e., the ETC Group) want to see nanotech banned before its even has a chance to be studied in a lab. I think --- and this is my professional opinion --- that we need to continue doing tox studies while allowing industries to put their products on the market.

As a bonus, here are some of the results from some others' research on nanotech:
* When rats inhale carbon nanotubes, the tubes bypass the blood-brain barrier and cover the brain. The resultant rats had black brains!
* Titania dioxide, a common ingredient in paint, sun screen and tooth paste, is very toxic to cells and rats.
* Silica dioxide, also a common ingredient in paint and food, is not toxic.
* Fullerenes (aka, bucky balls) are deadly to fish (verified by Richard Smalley from Rice University --- he created bucky balls)

Note that all of these materials exhibit very different properties from the bulk. You won't get sick from most of these products if you use the same concentrations of material, but simply change the size of the particles.

Our work will be published early next week on http://www.nanotoxicology.ufl.edu/ [ufl.edu].

NNI, ICON, Foresight, IMM, DNA and self regulation

[tlambert]

Full Disclosure: I'm a Senior Associate with the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing http://imm.org/ [imm.org].

I have to say that this article seriously misses the mark.

Recombinant DNA research self-regulation has been in place for 30 years now, and it has worked very well to prevent "Andromeda Strain" style accidents. The most recent full overhaul was in 1994:

http://www4.od.nih.gov/oba/rac/guidelines/guidelin es.html [nih.gov]

There are people who are holding debates about similar regulation for molecular nanotechnology already: The National Nanotechnology Initiative http://www.nano.gov/ [nano.gov], The Foresight Institute http://foresight.org/ [foresight.org], The International Council on Nanotechnology http://icon.rice.edu/ [rice.edu], and many others, including the IMM. The intent of these organizations is to establish guidelines for developement of nanotechnology, and to explore applications.

Here is the first set of guidelines which have been established:

http://imm.org/guidelines/current.html [imm.org]

I fully expect that this will be updated, as the technologies involved become more capable.

A good analysis of the actual societal implications is available from NNI here:

http://www.nano.gov/html/facts/society.html [nano.gov]

Don't blow things out of proportion until they are actually implemented; the amount of regulation of any technology has historically always been as much or even much more than was necessary at the time.

-- Terry