»nanotech«

A nice new object in the nanotech showroom: A team lead by James Tour of Rice University, Houston, presented the first motorized, single-molecule nanocar. It's made out of exactly 169 atoms, he told me. The motor is propelled by ultraviolet light pulses and already tested in a liquid. The next step is to put it on a flat surface. (See also the report by Peter Spotts in the Christian Science Monitor, 20.4.2006.) The futuristic goal: The car shall mimic nature and transport and assemble tiny building blocks to larger structures. The image below (provided by Rice University) shows a computer simulation of the nanocar.



Here a brief description of the car.

• size: 4nm x 3nm (length x width)
• assembly method: self-assembling chemical reactions
• wheels: spherical molecules of C, H and B, called p-carborane
• chassis: chain of five benzene molecules
• axles: free spinning alkynes
• motor: light-activated, paddle-shaped molecule
• battery: none, activated by UV light
• in total: 169 atoms, for chemists C59H68B40S2
• manual: Organic Letters (Vol.8,p.1713)

An interesting conference on nanotech safety issues took place in Finland. Key stakeholders from industry, politics, European bureaucracy, industrial companies, reinsurance companies, customer interest groups, including Greenpeace, exchanged ideas: http://www.fmnt.fi/ntss/

Dirk Asendorpf profiles in Die Zeit (28.9.2006) the eminent nanoscientist Cees Dekker (47) of Delft University, The Netherlands. Dekker not only achieved major nanotech breakthroughs and made it several times to the cover page of the magazines Science and Nature. He also hit the news because of his promotion of Intelligent Design, the non-scientific, religious motivated alternative to Darwinian evolution. Recently he turned his research focus from nano-material-science to nano-bio-science, where nanotech stuff like carbon nanotubes meet biological units like DNA. Asendorpf describes some interesting details of Dekkers live. He lives in a community house and leaves office around 6 pm to pursue his many social activities.

Mathias Schulenburg talks at Deutschlandfunk radio (20.2.2006) with Jürgen Altmann, a leading expert and critic on military applications of nanotechnology. Altmann recently published a book on the issue. He argues that with nanotech new options for military and also governmental surveillance of citizens may arise. Regarding miniaturisation new small weapons might be feasible, for instance, surface-to-air missles that may fit in your bag or pocket. With new ultra-tight materials metalls-free guns are possible; they cannot be discovered by present X-ray detectors at the airport. With so called smart dust the military could observe large areas and record any activity. Smart dust are tiny sensors with the size of grains of sand that communicate to each other by a wireless network. The are mostly invisible, like dust, and could also give the police, intelligence services or industrial spying new tools. Generally, Altmann demands for a scrutinizing view on nanotech achievements.

"Toxicology generally moves at a glacial pace compared to new product development", writes Barnaby Feder in the NY Times (6.10.2005). But this time, regarding nanotech it's different. According to Feder some eminent scientists in toxicology research and nanotech presented a report on how to screen best nanoparticles for health hazards. "The report emphasizes the need to characterize the particles in numerous ways, including shape, surface area, electrical characteristics and how likely they are to quickly form clumps that interact with the body differently than separate particles. It also describes a variety of tests for studying the impact of the materials on different organs and to test the different impacts of eating, breathing or touching the particles", writes Feder.

About a science communications project in Britain reports Niels Boeing in Die Zeit (6.10.2005). The so called NanoJury (at http://www.nanojury.org ) project, a citizens jury, wants to unravel the opinion of the public on nanotech. Some 20 citizens discuss the issue in workshops and seminars with nanotech experts and sociologists. The outcome is fascinating to Boeing: According to the citizens' conclusion governmental funding on nanotech shall focus on health and energy; toxicology issues shall be examined in detail; and nanotech products shall be labeled comprehensibly. The author's recommendation: the same procedure, please, also for Germany. (The Swiss already prepare for a start.)

That's the ultimate questions with the new technology. A piece in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (10. 5. 2006) reports that Swiss researchers develop a test system for nanoparticles to measure their effect on cell cultures. Obviously the rule of thumb "the tinier, the more toxic" or "more surface area, more impact" isn't true in any case: tiny carbon nanotubes stick together to form larger objects with spear-like performance to the cells. Zinc oxide (ZnO2) destroyed cells similar to asbestos; whilst ferric oxide damages cells of the lung, but not of connective tissue. Obviously, the impact depends on the cell type and the material.

Manfred Lindinger reports in FAZ (14.10.2005) about safety issues in nanotech. The German ministry for the environment launched a debate on risks and opportunities of nanoscience. Diverse societal groups attended. For instance, environmentalists demanded to bring the debate on safety issues to the public?mentioning the British Nanojury project as an example. On the other hand, representatives of industry said that nanotech materials don't pose any new threads and that existing legislation is sufficient. In contrast, another corporate scientist said that it's very hard to characterize nanomaterials and nanoparticles to attribute risks: "In principle any compound or particle has to be characterized for toxicity for its own," Wolfgang Luther of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) is quoted.

As a starting point for the NanoJury UK project, the respected Cambridge nanoscientist Mark Welland writes in the Guardian (19.5.2005) about his experiences and the aims of the citizens' jury. Nanoscience and nanotech labs or centers shoot up like mushrooms at university campuses but the Cambridge-based researchs collaboration (IRC) in nanotech (U Cambridge, U Bristol, UCL) was the first to engage a social scientist to study concerns by the public, attitudes of scientists and the role of communications and media. In-house education, debates with opponents now lead to a citizens' jury with broader scope: Better "statistical" significance of the measure with the Guardian as the lead trumpet. Welland on recent frustrations in public education: "If we invited schoolchildren into the lab, something we do regularly, then we would be 'engaging' with a statistically insignificant fraction of the public." NanoJury is the solution to "reach out more effectively." But Welland considers the project also as a more democratic process: "Even if the jury eventually rules that nanotechnology is, ultimately, undesirable, the lessons we will have learned about how science, technology and public understanding can work together for a responsible future will be very valuable."


NanoJury at the Guardian's website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/nanojury/
NanoJury's website:
http://www.nanojury.org

The German NanoCare project is aimed at studying potential hazards for researchers and workers in nano fabs. Christian Schwägerl reports in FAZ (20.2.2006) that the nanoparticles are almost safe when immobilized inside products (and there are many products). But during production and in research the particles may pose some yet unknown threat to people. Hence, major industrial companies like BASF, Degussa, Bayer and several universities cooperate with the project.
In a later article, Stephan Finsterbusch reports from the Nano-Tech fair in Tokyo (FAZ, 24.2.2006). Some notes: In Germany some 550 companies work in the field of nanotech, they received 300 million euros subsidies. "And we are just at the beginning," says Harald Pielartzik, Bayer's nanotech lead researcher.

When Christian Schwägerl strolls the streets he finds ever more products advertised as enhanced by nanotechnology. The goods range from cosmetics to car maintenance equipment. Obviously 'nano' is en vogue. But as companies watch out for new markets, also Greenpeace is doing so, argues Schwägerl in FAZ (6.6.2005). Nanotechnology may also see some drawbacks as, for instance, hazardous health effects from nano particles may not ruled out. And according to the German science ministry nanotech may be used almost everywhere in future products. Hence, some scientists are concerned that the buzzword turns into the opposite, comparable to a GMO-like meaning. On the other hand, Greenpeace and Cambridge University's nanotech branch launched the citizen's jury, dubbed NanoJury UK, to query lay people on their concerns and hopes regarding nanotechnology.