Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Science Technology

Nano Tech. Spurs Continued Health Concerns 20

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the jump-first-ask-questions-later dept.
* * Beatles-Beatles writes to tell us Yahoo is reporting that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is working hard to develop guidelines for working with nanomaterials. There have been no proven health risks due to nanomaterials but Pat Roy Mooney, executive director of the ETC Group (an Ottawa-based non-profit that studies the impact of technology on people and the environment) was quoted saying that "No one knows, and that's the problem." Some feel that continued research and testing is needed to understand the nano-age before continuing to jump with both feet.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Nano Tech. Spurs Continued Health Concerns More

Nano Tech. Spurs Continued Health Concerns

Comments Filter:

  • Dear Slashdot Editors (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mattwarden ( 699984 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @03:35AM (#14237030)
    I'll give you $5 to stop posting Beatles-Beatles linkwhore stories.
  • So basically what this article is saying is "nanotechnology is cool but it may have problems but we're not sure yet so just pretend everything is fine."
  • Here they are all worried about working with this stuff
    but they are telling everyone how wonderfull it will be
    to put these things into YOUR body to make you HEALTHY....

    I smell dookie......
    • Forgive the cynicism, but it will come down to who has the most money, the most number of friends in the FDA and congress, and the best spin doctors. When there's a chance to make large sums of money on nanotech, the 'alarmists' shouting warnings of potential dangers will be dismissed as zealot quacks. It is commonplace in the USA today. (Pun optional).
  • The NanoBusiness Alliance, a group of large and small businesses, is looking at working with other groups to conduct an economic analysis of the level of funding that is needed for environmental health and safety research in the coming year.
    typically, just enough to not be liable if/when it hits the fan.

  • Hmm... where have I seen this before... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bersl2 ( 689221 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @04:45AM (#14237164) Journal
    As I see it, the very worst case scenario: it's the second coming of asbestos.

    <shudder/>

    Really, anybody who decides that more research into the health effects isn't worth it does not get a gold star in risk management.

    • Re:Hmm... where have I seen this before... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Bahumat ( 213955 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @02:33PM (#14240173) Homepage Journal
      Heh. I'm a professional in the Loss Control industry. It's scary how many people want to say "Well, we don't know if it is a hazard yet, so let's not let that slow us down! If it's a hazard we'll fix it after!"

      As far as nanoscale materials go, many of them are rather horrific. Turns out that gold, one of the least reactive metals, at nano-scale particles start to bind and do all sorts of nasty things within the body. Nothing like heavy metal salts to make your day, mm-mm!

      And yes, many proposed nano-scale materials present threats to the health of the respiratory system equivalent to or beyond asbestos. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson has some great views of health complications.
  • ...if he keeps this up, ScuttleMonkey will soon have to build a site like this one [unemployedloser.com]. Though given his track record so far, it'll probably just link back to Beatles-Beatles' site.

    I'm just wondering who's kneeling under whose desk...?

    Ack! Mental image! [shudder]


  • Don't put it in your mouth (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shihar ( 153932 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @07:30AM (#14237506)
    Nano-materials are generally not a problem. Even in the worst case scenario where it turns out that nanotubes are as bad or worse the asbestos, it wouldn't mean much.

    Open up your computer, peek in, and realize that almost everything you see in there was made using a horribly toxic process, could probably kill you if you tried to eat it, and would probably do bad things if you ground it up and tried to breathe it in. The nice thing is that all that stuff is in a nice solid state that isn't going to cause you any problems unless you do something stupid like grind it up and snort it.

    Nano-materials are the same. Could breathing in carbon nanotubes give you lung cancer like asbestos? Sure. That said, it isn't worth the lost sleep until someone decides to line the walls of your house with carbon nanotubes. I wouldn't want my walls lined with arsenic either, but I don't care that my computer has some in it.

    Further, you need to realize that the number of people doing 'true' nanotechnology where they are building novel and new molecules that we truly don't understand are very few, and of these few, even fewer are even thinking about products. Most of the 'nano' technology we hear about is just dumb mundane shit that provides no danger. People throw a little TiO2 into a material and call it "nano-technology" for the investors.

    Right now, the only people that this stuff should concern should be researchers handling this stuff. Speaking as someone who DOES work with carbon nanotubes, you need to realize that we already treat this stuff seriously. We work with nanotubes in an aqueous solution such that it isn't going to float into anyone's lungs. On the very rare occasion when we work with this stuff when it is dry (looks like a black powder), this stuff is treated like powdered cancer and all precautions are taken.

    The moral of the story? If you are a researcher and you are working with fullerenes, treat them with respect so you don't die in 20 years from lung cancer. If you are an average Joe, don't worry, you don't need to petition politicians to save you from the evil nano-technology yet. If someone wants to offer you buckyball memory or nanotubes transistors in your computer, relax, smile, and enjoy your spiffy new toy. When someone offers you nano-tube walls and buckyball insulation, THEN you can start to take these concerns seriously.
  • Has this been kicked off the front page?

    To mask the fact that three stories in a row were accepted from this spammer?

  • I'd be surprised (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Julian Morrison ( 5575 ) on Monday December 12, 2005 @08:44AM (#14237682)
    What we're talking about here, in the case of nanotubes, is carbon, not silicon. Silicon is basically biologically null. Humans don't use it for much, barely need to eat it, can't digest or break down its oxide which is the form that causes silicosis. Nanotubes by contrast are elemental carbon, a material whose reaction-products the body knows intimately. In less than ridiculous quantities (ie: not enough to cause "black lung"), I think nanotubes would be quickly swept up and junked by the body. In fact, I suspect the difficulty in medical use of nanotubes would be more how to keep them undamaged, than how to keep them from persisting.

    This strikes me as the usual eco-weenies looking, searching desperately, for anything that might retard the techical progress which they regard as unnatural.
    • searching desperately, for anything that might retard the techical progress which they regard as unnatural.

      Yeah, how dare they try to get us to be careful about processes that we don't yet fully understand? The nerve.

    • Re:I'd be surprised (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tsa ( 15680 )
      Silicon is basically biologically null. Humans don't use it for much, barely need to eat it, can't digest or break down its oxide which is the form that causes silicosis.

      Porous silicon is digested by the body. Research is being done on its ability to slowly release drugs.

      I think nanotubes would be quickly swept up and junked by the body. In fact, I suspect the difficulty in medical use of nanotubes would be more how to keep them undamaged, than how to keep them from persisting.

      I wouldn't be so sure. Conjuga
  • Feel free to use as you like. Anyone who has a site to host this on please do so and submit it to as many greasemonkey sites as you can find.

    // ==UserScript==
    // @name Slashdot - Remove ScuttleMonkey / **Beatles Articles
    // @namespace http://www.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~vlaube/Projekte/G reaseMonkey/
    // @description Removes these obviously sponsored stores from the main page
    // @include http://slashdot.org/*
    // @include http://.slashdot.org/*
    // ==/UserScript==
    ( function() {
    var xpath="//div[@class='article']/di

  • Bonkers (Score:2)

    by tsa ( 15680 )
    This is such a load of bonkers. 'Nanotechnology' is just a new word for chemistry, something that people have done for hundreds of years (OK, I'm oversimplyfying things a bit but that IS what it comes down to). It's absolutely unnecessary to come up with new guidelines for doing 'nanotechnology'. The classical rules for working with chemicals are enough. Besides, you normally can make an educated guess as to what the dangers of the particular compound you are working with or making are, because you normally

Slashdot Top Deals

E = MC ** 2 +- 3db

Close