Angels disrupt nanotech conference

ironic, to use computers to oppose technology ...

and if the rest of your science is on a par with the description of carbon nanotubes as "toxic asbestos-like fibres" then I suggest you go back to your GCSE textbooks.

...other than trolling on Indymedia all day long.

Nowhere in the article above was there any mention of opposing "technology" in general. So there's nothing "ironic" about using computers to highlight concerns about any particular technology.

Regarding the asbestos analogy, the comparison with carbon nanotubes as a potentially toxic agent is perfectly valid, and has been cited by scientists working in the nanotech field.

'One issue the conference addressed that had not previously been widely contemplated is the environmental and health risks that nanotubes pose. Ron Morgan of Los Alamos noted that nanotubes could pose a health risk through skin irritation, ingestion, or inhalation. "The human body has never been subjected to materials like this," he noted, saying the material most like nanotubes was asbestos, a known carcinogen. Animal tests of nanotubes are just beginning, he noted, and early results do show some adverse affects. "These are not completely inert in mammalian tissue," he said. He urged researchers to treat the materials with caution, using fume hoods and other equipment to keep them from inhaling the material. "Don’t be the guinea pig."'
 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/48/1

The physicist Dr. Mark Wendman recently wrote in response to a study dismissing potential toxicity:
"I noticed you [Dr. Colvin] testified we don't know about hazards of nanoscale particles. It is not worth exaggerating, but neither would someone experienced in industry avoid due caution associated with any finely divided nanoscale material.

Regrettably before the advent of nanotubes and buckyballs there were many examples of nanoscale structured materials present - in nature and manmade.

Example #1 is asbestos - its toxicity arises from the nanoscale fibers penetrating cell walls quite readily.

It did not result in recent nanotechnology science and it turned out to be a huge health and liability problem, probably slightly exaggerated and overlitigated but still a significant health concern.

Pretty obvious example. The aluminum silicates comprising asbestos are relatively benign if not in nanoscale form and not breathed in or contacted directly in nanoscale form.

But in a form or environment where small particles are liberated and waft in the air and are breathed in, it is pretty obvious that there is a hazard. Just ask any of the firms which are defendants in the many cases related to asbestos, and the industrial toxicologists and cancer specialists who can describe all the gory details

Likewise well known with carbon materials, is that Xerox toners, which are carbon black, are associated with cancer incidences in maintenance technicians of copy equipment and others who work with carbon black, the main ingredient of toner.

It is plain that nanotubes will be no more benign than carbon black and might well be at least a little more hazardous because again the smaller size will under the "wrong" circumstances increase the possibility of breathing into the lungs, and initiating the same cancers that are observed caused by carbon black, since the smaller particles permit longer distances for the particles to be airborne, and greater risk of compromising the cell wall integrity correlated with cancer incidences.

Some food for thought.

I did evaluate the use of asbestos nanoscale fibers for some applications touted as requiring carbon nanotubes. Much cheaper and in several instances even very useful. In Quebec, where I am from, the mining of Asbestos is significantly less expensive than any price contemplated for nanotube production.

But there remains the toxicology challenges for which there exists no obvious rigorous data yet in nanotubes. This is not a reason to be Pollyanna about potential industrial and consumer safety hazards, just more reason to practice greater caution once outside the environment of small scale lab experiments.

You might mull this over, since there is more than strong anecdotal evidence that history will repeat itself with carbon nanotubes, if due care is not taken.

Start calling it "nano-asbestos", and some will get the idea. I found out the dimensions of asbestos fiber diameters after I visited the Smalley Lab at Rice Univ to mount tiny multiwalled carbon nanotubes on Atomic Force Microscope probes ( nanostyluses ) and gave some thought to checking into asbestos. When I returned to Montreal ( home ) for a visit I spoke to some geologists at McGill and found in a book on silicate minerals that Asbestos was a NANO-fiber, far ahead in time of the discovery of carbon Nanotubes.


p.s. I have about 20 years working in microfabrication in the Integrated Circuits industry and 8 of these was working on nanotech sensors."

... such as trying to get past ignorance.

Nanotubes - as toxic as asbestos? Could be. The hazards are, of course, completely different. The problems with asbestos were that it was widely used as a building material before people realised the hazards. Cyanide is much more toxic, but it isn't banned. Why? Because if you know the hazards you can deal with them. So, by all means, let's have research. But lets look at the 'angels'.

'The Heavenly Righteous Opposed to Nanotech Greed'

Ah, nice to be righteous, isn't it. And so nasty to be greedy.

'- about the toxicity of nanoparticles.'

so do your research into the hazards

'- about the military use of nanotechnologies.'

what can't be used for military purposes? Oy! There're making wheels over there. Next thing we know they'll be making chariots.

- about how nanosensors will increase control and surveillance.

so do CCTvs. I say, let's ban them.

'- about how nanotechnology will strengthen corporate power.'

So we do nothing that can strenghtn corporate power [whatever that ill defined subject is]. What is there left for us to do? No more, cars, aeroplanes, computers. They're all made by - horror! corprations!

- about patents on matter.

What's unique about patenst and nanotech? You can patent any discovery.


- about circumventing disability rights.

all I can say is - wtf? nanotech? disability rights? Explain, please, someone.

You spend serious amounts of time on Indymedia, trolling, and I have yet to see you actually win any argument. Maybe if you keep trying, you'll eventually manage it one day.

The weapons aspects of nanotechnology are really the most frightening. You obviously don't know anything about it.

 http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT05/Papers/Gubrud/

Actually, this website, www.foresight.org, is pro-nanotech. I am pro-technology, but at the moment we simply do not have the social responsibility to handle it. We are politically, socially and spiritually light-years behind our level of technology.

Here is the postscript to that link...terrifying stuff.

Postscript

The history of war in the modern technological era is a history of surprise. Time and again, technology proves its power against our vulnerable bodies. A vast destructive potential is kept sealed until the time of battle, and when the seals are broken, we are surprised by how much vaster the devastation is than even the last terrible war. Order an attack over the trench lines... Surprise! The guns and artillery turn your brave soldiers into hamburger as fast as you can feed them into the grinder. Unleash a war of conquest... Surprise! Fifty million dead, your great cities in ruin, the survivors cold and starving. Start a nuclear exchange... Well, we were warned.

It was technology, not policy, that forced the doctrine of deterrence on us, just as it was technology that determined the outlines of the nuclear arms race, once the decision to pursue nuclear confrontation had been made. The logic of military technology produced a confrontation so complex and unmanageable, and with such short time lines for decision and action, that it threatened to explode in spite of "assured destruction." Again, people were intelligent enough to recognize realities, and to place restraints on the offensive arms race while shelving futile dreams of defense.

If technological realities now demand that we go further, and give up the warrior tradition, the illusion of independence and the vanity of sovereign self-defense, will we heed these demands, or will we try to preserve the institutions and attitudes of an earlier epoch, until we are surprised by a disaster beyond even our worst nuclear nightmares? If it is impossible to maintain an armed confrontation between nanotechnology-armed and hostile nations, then this is exactly our dilemma.

They're only interested in winding people up. It's usually an attention-getting device for people who feel undervalued and unnoticed; they find web discussion sites helpful for lashing back anonymously.

This troll here specialises in parading his ignorance on a wide variety of scientific matters, particularly chemistry:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/284548.html

The tactic is nearly always the same: "you've got fact X wrong, so the rest of your article is obviously worthless". The attack gets easily dismissed with a simple google search, so he then switches rapidly over to attack something else. And so on, until he runs out of targets. On to the next article.

Feeding the trolls can be fun though, and good exercise if you're trying to improve your typing speed.

Just don't expect to persuade them of anything.

... that no one actually took up the arguments, but just resorted to abuse. One way out of the discussion I suppose.

And I stand by the assertion that mining He3 from the Moon is a fantasy.

Well, someone did take up one argument, in the sense that there was a thoughtful contribution on military matters.

One of the snags is that any technology which benefits us as a society, from cars to computers, can esily be turned into weapons. It is interesting though that most of the conflicts being fought in the world at the moment [eg Darfur] are actually low tech wars. Iraq gets a very high profile on Indymedia, but in terms of casualties in current conflicts, it is probably eclipsed by Chechnya or Darfur.

And the storming of Falluja was essentially low tech - all the gizmos in the world do not substitute for troops on the ground.

There is an interesting dichotomy with nuclear weapons: they almost certainly prevented a major war between the West and the USSR, at the expense of a host of surragate wars elsewhere [eg Korea, Afghanistan].

if Mr/Ms Troll or anyone else has questions they'd like answering about nanotech (military uses, toxicity, whatever), start with the 80 page report called The Big Down on www.etcgroup.org

If that's too long, there's also The Little Big Down report on the same website.

Quit carping - get active

To quickly diverge towards Helium...

One of my projects for my Physics Masters was on the feasibility of Fusion Power.

Helium 3 comes from the sun, is carried by the solar wind, and embeds itself on the moon, because the moon has essentially no, or at least very very thin, atmosphere. That's why there's a host of exotic elements in moonrocks which aren't on the Earth. It's a consequence of the solar wind.

And you don't need a lot of Helium-3 to fuel a fusion reactor, if they ever got one working. That's why people have taken up the idea of mining Helium on the moon. Actually, I came to the conclusion it was better to get all the raw elements from the sea, and just use Tritium and Lithium. But if we ever built permanent bases on the moon, if we don't wipe ourselves out with nanotechnology first, Helium-3 would certainly be a readily available fuel source which wouldn't have to be exported from the Earth.

And back to nanotechnology....bear in mind nanotechnology is potentially far more destructive than a simple wheel. In fact, one potential use is the neutralisation of nuclear deterrent. As a weapon, they have the potential to outperform all the other weapons of mass destruction.
Also, maybe this will raise your awareness of the issue slightly. China is actually ahead of the US slightly in developing militiary uses for nanotechnology. There's really a potential for another arms race. Look up information about China and nanotechnology.

In fact, the lack of awareness regarding this topic is quite astounding, which is why I think it's such a good thing that the 'angels' performed this action. It really is a huge can of worms, and I don't think the world leaders have the political maturity to deal with it...

Some more info regarding weapons capabilities of nanotech...

 http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/06/nanotech_arms_r.html

Here is a section from it

"Subquestion K: How well can civilian targets be protected?

Preliminary answer: Billions of toxin-carrying insectoid nanobots could fit in a small packing crate. Orbital or UAV-based weapons can be deployed on a large scale. It looks like civilians and civilian property may not be defensible without major lifestyle changes. It's possible that a comprehensive shield could protect against some forms of attack, possibly including nano-scale robots, but long-range high-energy weapons may require impractical amounts of shielding.

The alternative is to prevent the deployment of such weapons in the first place, but this would be quite difficult to achieve by any means. A control-freak approach would be hugely oppressive (for the protected civilians as well as non-citizens) and may not be sustainable, and an effective policy-based approach will be difficult to design.

Subquestion L: Is an arms race likely to be unstable?

Preliminary answer: Yes. The nuclear arms race was stable for several reasons. In virtually every way, the nano-arms race will be the opposite.

Nuclear weapons are hard to design, hard to build, require easily monitored testing, do indiscriminate and lasting damage, do not rapidly become obsolete, have almost no peaceful use, and are universally abhorred. Nano capability will be easy to build (given a nanofactory), will allow easily concealable testing, will be relatively easy to control and deactivate, would become obsolete very rapidly, almost every design is dual-use, and peaceful and non-lethal (police) use will be common. Nukes are easier to stockpile than to use; nano weapons are the opposite.

Also, as Mark Gubrud pointed out, a deployed rapid-response net would be unstable. (A hair-trigger complex system eventually will suffer a false alarm.) One observer has argued that immune systems are not generally unstable, and humans should be able to do even better. We disagree on three counts. First, humans aren't close to understanding the immune system yet, and we may have to design military systems before we do understand it. Second, what's needed is not very comparable to a biological immune system, so we'll be doing a lot of new engineering that'll be hard either to test or to analyze. Third, the instability that Gubrud analyzed is not from one defensive system reacting to disorganized and localized threats—it's from two defensive systems reacting to each other. The closest analogy from immunology would be graft-vs-host disease, which is a great example of instability."

And this regarding China, which is leading the world in this field...

Before you troll, sceptic, why don't you educate yourself on the topic. It's like, you're contrary to everything that is said here in Indymedia. If I put up a post 'Raping babies is wrong', I'm sure you would post a response in defense of raping babies.



 http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/09/chinas_ambition.html


China's Ambitions
According to a new article published by the Association for Asian Research, the Chinese government is supporting ambitious plans to develop nanotechnology at a pace second to none. They have embarked upon at least a three stage program aimed at becoming world leaders in the field. All of this has taken place only with the last few years.

Prior to 2000, the Chinese media made practically no mention of the concept of "nanotechnology" (nami jishu) or its potential for revolutionizing China's high tech industry. Today, however, dozens of major Chinese research centers and hundreds of enterprises engage in the production of nanotechnologies, which has quickly become a multibillion-Yuan industry...
The rapid development of China's nanotech industry is due in large part to the intervention of the central government. Apparently added to a list of priority technologies at the end of the 1990s, nanotech has enjoyed state funding since then through National 863 Hi-Tech R&D Plan. The plan provided huge investments for nanotech projects from both the central and local governments.


CRN has written before about the significance of nanotech as a dual-use technology, meaning it has both commercial and military uses. Apparently in China the emphasis is strongly -- though not exclusively -- on military applications.

Remarkably, developments within the industry have been both civilian and military in purpose, though the latter has, of course, enjoyed a higher degree of priority. Strategists within China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) understand perfectly well the significance of nanotechnologies in military reforms within the United States over the last twelve years. With this in mind, China has actively cooperated with leading nanotech companies in the United States and Europe. It seems reasonable to assume, also, that such cooperation is well underway with the Russian Federation.
China's economic reforms over the last two decades have opened up the country to investment and partnering opportunities with the West. This has accelerated the growth of the world's largest economy, an effect sure to increase if their ambitious aims in nanotechnology are achieved.

In November 2002, CAS launched a joint project with the U.S. company, Veeco Instruments Inc. The CAS Institute of Chemistry and Veeco agreed to cooperate in the running of a nanometer technology center aimed at providing access to Veeco-made nanotech instruments to Chinese researchers, including atomic force and scanning-tunneling microscopes...
The partnership between CAS and Veeco came amidst great optimism regarding China's nanotech potential. "China will gain the leadership position in nanotech," remarked Veeco President Don Kania at the opening ceremony...

At the present time, some thirty institutions are engaged in basic nanotech research. These include CAS Physical Institute, CAS Chemical Institute, CAS Solid Physics Institute (Hefei), Tsinghua University (Beijing), Beijing University, Hangzhou University, Nanjing University, and several universities in Shanghai. In addition, Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen have each created their own Nanotech Centers, uniting local R&D structures. In terms of basic nanotech R&D, China has reached the most advanced levels in the world, rivaling even the capacities of the United States.


We also have an indication that China may be working not just on basic nanoscale technologies, but also on molecular nanotechnology, presumably aimed at a third-stage accomplishment of molecular manufacturing.

The Center for Nanotechnologies at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Beijing opened in 2000. Uniting over a dozen CAS institutes and several university laboratories, the aim of the center was to upgrade scientific cooperation while accelerating nanotech industrial development in Beijing...
The center would also provide the Institute of Chemistry's molecular nanotech R&D division with "super-advanced" measuring and controlling devices. The Institute's chief researcher, Chen Wang, has worked closely with CAS vice president Bai Chunli to ensure support for his work on molecular nanotechnologies.


What does all this mean for the United States, Europe, Brazil, and other leading Western nations? Are they prepared to accept a new balance of power, a world in which a non-democratic government has achieved unprecedented strength through nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing? Will existing tensions in Asia reach a breaking point if China keeps advancing?

It is questions such as these that must be asked in studies of the long-term societal impacts of nanotechnology. Instead of focusing on safer risks like nanoparticles, the Royal Society, the National Science Foundation, and others must address the real issues that challenge our survival and our future as a species.

Mike Treder

i cant download your picture but I am worried about computers because I read somewhere that hard drives actually use nanotechnology. every time we use our computors or store information does that mean we are creating more of this nanostuff????!?? Should we start a boycott of computers in case we create nanoparticles?

mining He3 on the moon? Yeah, right.

"Preliminary answer: Billions of toxin-carrying insectoid nanobots could fit in a small packing crate. Orbital or UAV-based weapons can be deployed on a large scale."

Insectoid nanobots? He's been reading Michael Crichton [see post above].

Can anyone give me any credible evidence that such a thing is possible? Any at all? Other than assertion? That's what I'm against. Someone posts a scare story in a website and suddenly science fiction becomes fact.

Has anyone here ever discussed what nanotechnology is actually about? Other to say that carbon nanotubes are like asbestos? [Not].

And I bet you that none of your righteous angels have more than a GCSE in science. And given what's taught at GCSE, that ain't much.

Although you can't have a rational debate with a troll, I think there are positive things about feeding trolls sometimes. You may not be able to convince a troll of anything, but troll's remarks might sway a casual reader who isn't informed about the issues. If people always observe the rule of "don't feed the trolls" then people will see trolls getting the last word with their often plausible-to-the-ignorant arguments. They will assume that no one refuted the troll's claims because they are unable to do; that they troll's claims are true. On the other hand, if they see people rationally answering the troll's criticisms they will soon see how shallow the troll's arguments are and how the troll is just someone out to make trouble rather than someone with genuine opinions. I myself have almost been swayed by trolls' arguments on some issues that I was uninformed about, until replies to the trolls made it clear that the trolls' comments were unfounded. If a person lacks the inclination to inform themself on an issue then debates on Indymedia may be the only basis they have for an opinion! So keep up the good work, Troll-keepers.

...can be found here:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/12/302576.html

"Polyphonic Spree"... heh heh!

I wouldn't mind if people did engage the issues rationally.

Please answer the following on one side of paper only:

"Do you think carbon nanotubes are like asbestos?"

"Do you think insectsoid nanorobots are plausible?"

The issues? Please?

Anything troll like about the above?

------quote from above----------
'One issue the conference addressed that had not previously been widely contemplated is the environmental and health risks that nanotubes pose. Ron Morgan of Los Alamos noted that nanotubes could pose a health risk through skin irritation, ingestion, or inhalation. "The human body has never been subjected to materials like this," he noted, saying the material most like nanotubes was asbestos, a known carcinogen. Animal tests of nanotubes are just beginning, he noted, and early results do show some adverse affects. "These are not completely inert in mammalian tissue," he said. He urged researchers to treat the materials with caution, using fume hoods and other equipment to keep them from inhaling the material. "Don’t be the guinea pig."'
 http://www.thespacereview.com/article/48/1

The physicist Dr. Mark Wendman recently wrote in response to a study dismissing potential toxicity:
"I noticed you [Dr. Colvin] testified we don't know about hazards of nanoscale particles. It is not worth exaggerating, but neither would someone experienced in industry avoid due caution associated with any finely divided nanoscale material.

Regrettably before the advent of nanotubes and buckyballs there were many examples of nanoscale structured materials present - in nature and manmade.

Example #1 is asbestos - its toxicity arises from the nanoscale fibers penetrating cell walls quite readily.

It did not result in recent nanotechnology science and it turned out to be a huge health and liability problem, probably slightly exaggerated and overlitigated but still a significant health concern.

Pretty obvious example. The aluminum silicates comprising asbestos are relatively benign if not in nanoscale form and not breathed in or contacted directly in nanoscale form.

But in a form or environment where small particles are liberated and waft in the air and are breathed in, it is pretty obvious that there is a hazard. Just ask any of the firms which are defendants in the many cases related to asbestos, and the industrial toxicologists and cancer specialists who can describe all the gory details

Likewise well known with carbon materials, is that Xerox toners, which are carbon black, are associated with cancer incidences in maintenance technicians of copy equipment and others who work with carbon black, the main ingredient of toner.

It is plain that nanotubes will be no more benign than carbon black and might well be at least a little more hazardous because again the smaller size will under the "wrong" circumstances increase the possibility of breathing into the lungs, and initiating the same cancers that are observed caused by carbon black, since the smaller particles permit longer distances for the particles to be airborne, and greater risk of compromising the cell wall integrity correlated with cancer incidences.

Some food for thought.

I did evaluate the use of asbestos nanoscale fibers for some applications touted as requiring carbon nanotubes. Much cheaper and in several instances even very useful. In Quebec, where I am from, the mining of Asbestos is significantly less expensive than any price contemplated for nanotube production.

But there remains the toxicology challenges for which there exists no obvious rigorous data yet in nanotubes. This is not a reason to be Pollyanna about potential industrial and consumer safety hazards, just more reason to practice greater caution once outside the environment of small scale lab experiments.

You might mull this over, since there is more than strong anecdotal evidence that history will repeat itself with carbon nanotubes, if due care is not taken.

Start calling it "nano-asbestos", and some will get the idea. I found out the dimensions of asbestos fiber diameters after I visited the Smalley Lab at Rice Univ to mount tiny multiwalled carbon nanotubes on Atomic Force Microscope probes ( nanostyluses ) and gave some thought to checking into asbestos. When I returned to Montreal ( home ) for a visit I spoke to some geologists at McGill and found in a book on silicate minerals that Asbestos was a NANO-fiber, far ahead in time of the discovery of carbon Nanotubes.


p.s. I have about 20 years working in microfabrication in the Integrated Circuits industry and 8 of these was working on nanotech sensors."

--------end quote---------------

An entire molecular electronics industry is poised to take off, much of it on the back of carbon nanotubes. But new research is raising alarm. Nanotubes are highly damaging to the lungs of mice. Dr. Mae-Wan Ho calls for a moratorium until proper safeguards can be put in place.

Molecular electronics is making headlines. Much of it is based on single-wall carbon nanotubes, which have many other potential applications as strong, lightweight material in the aerospace and defence industries. Nanotubes are now manufactured in bulk. Dr. Smalley (Nobel laureate and a pioneer in carbon nanotube research) predicted that hundreds of thousands of tons of the stuff could be produced in 5 to 10 years and "in time, millions of tonnes of nanotubes will be produced worldwide every year". But enthusiasm for research and development has run way ahead of safety precaution.

Unprocessed nanotubes are very light, and could become airborne and potentially reach the lungs. Researchers in the Space and Life Sciences of NASA Johnson Space Center, Wyle Laboratories, and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Texas Medical School, in Houston, Texas, USA, investigated the toxicity of carbon nanotubes to the lungs, by introducing them into the trachea of mice under anaesthesia.

The results are alarming. Five of the mice treated with high dose of one kind of nanotubes died within 7 days. All nanotube products induced epitheliod granulomas – tumour-like nodules of bloated white blood cells in the lining of the lungs - and in some cases inflammation of the lungs at 7 days. These persisted and became more pronounced in animals that were sacrificed at 90days. The lungs of some animals also showed inflammation around the bronchi, and extensive necrosis (tissue death).

Carbon nanotubes, the researchers conclude, are "much more toxic than carbon black and can be more toxic than quartz, which is considered a serious occupational health hazard in chronic inhalation exposures."

The researchers had used nanotubes produced under different conditions containing different heavy metals. Samples of ‘raw’ and ‘purified’ nanotubes both contained iron, while a third nanotube product contained nickel and yttrium.

A suspension containing 0, 0.1 or 0.5 mg of carbon nanotubes was introduced into the trachea of the mice. As added controls, groups of mice were given a suspension of carbon black or of quartz. The mice were killed at 7days or 90days after the single treatment, in order to examine the lungs.

Nanotubes are neither water-soluble nor wettable, and all the products were extremely difficult to disperse; and ultrasound as well as heat-inactivated mouse serum had to be used.

Graphite – the most similar form of carbon to nanotubes - does not possess the electrical properties and fibrous structure of the nanotubes, and its permissible inhalation exposure limit set by the occupational safety and health administration (OSHA) is 15mg/m 3of total dust and 5mg/m 3for the ‘respirable’ (capable of being inhaled) fractions. It is well known that the geometry and surface chemistry of particulates can play an important role in causing lung toxicity.

All animals treated with 0.1mg per mouse of nickel-yttrium containing nanotubes showed no overt clinical signs. But 5 of 9 mice treated with 0.5mg died: 2/4 within the 7day group and 3/5 in the 90day group. All deaths occurred 4 to 7 days after receiving the nanotubes. Deaths generally preceded by lethargy, inactivity and body-weight losses. These symptoms were also seen in the high dose mice that survived. Mice in the 90day group lost 27% of their body weight by the first week. Symptoms in the two surviving mice disappeared after one week and the animals started to gain weight.

The iron-containing nanotubes (both raw and purified) did not cause deaths in the mice. Mild signs of inactivity, hypothermia, and occasionally shivering were most noticeable 8 to 12h after treatment with the raw nanotubes, and symptoms disappeared soon after this time. There were no body weight losses with the raw or purified iron-containing nanotubes.

Under the microscope, the lungs of dead animals in the high dose group showed large aggregates of particles in macrophages (large white blood cells that ‘eat’ foreign particles) in the alveolar space (air sac), some of the aggregates were also found in spaces between cells, forming granulomas (tumour-like nodules consisting of the bloated white blood cells). There were also signs of inflammation. Granulomas were not detected in mice given the low dose of the nickel-yttrium nanotubes. The lungs of mice given high dose of either raw or purified iron-containing nanotubes showed prominent granulomas at 7days. Most of these nodules were located beneath the bronchial epithelium (lining) and were present throughout the lung fields. Some appeared to extend into the bronchi as polyps (irregular growths) .

The granulomas consisted of macrophages laden with black particles, and had very few other white blood cells. Some of the lungs from mice given high doses of the nanotubes appeared grossly abnormal at 90 days. The lung lesions were generally more pronounced than those given the high dose at 7 days; some also had necrosis (tissue death), and extensive inflammation. Granulomas and other pulmonary lesions were also seen in some of the mice given the lose doses of nanotubes, but to a milder degree.

Heat inactivated serum did not produce any clinical signs, nor gross or microscopic lesions. The mice of the carbon black or quartz treated controls also did not show any clinical signs that could be attributed to treatment. Quartz at high dose (0.5 mg) induced an increase in the number of macrophages in the lungs, and some of these cells contained particles. Quartz also produced mild to moderate inflammation. The results for the 7day and 90day groups were generally similar. One mouse in the 7day group had a low-grade granuloma reaction; and the mice in the high dose 90day group had increased clusters of lymphocytes surrounding the bronchi (sign of inflammation).

Purified nanotubes contained only a small amount of metal (2% by weight). Insoluble iron and iron compounds are low in toxicity, so the results strongly indicate that the nanotubes themselves induced the granulomas. Another research group had found similar results previously in rats.

The deaths of 5 mice may have been caused by nickel and yttrium in the nanotube sample, as they did not occur in the other samples of nanotubes.

One of the major effect of nanotubes is that they moved rapidly through the walls of the air sacs, in contrast to carbon black. Nanotubes are totally insoluble and non-biodegradable fibres, and it is well known that the pathogenicity of a fibre in the lungs directly correlates with its persistence.

Graphite toxicity is known as graphite pneumoconiosis, characterized by granulomas, emphysema, tissue death and hardening of the blood vessels, among other symptoms, and has been long recognized in a large number of workers involved in mining and processing graphite. But theses nanotube samples did not contain graphite.

These results show that a single exposure is enough to trigger serious effects including deaths. No safety tests have yet been carried out, especially in the longer-term, on a range of other nanoparticles used, some of them in intended medical procedures. Civil society watchdogs such as the ETC Group have called for a moratorium on nanotechnology research and development.

The present findings certainly justify a moratorium on research involving nanotubes, if not all nanoparticles, until proper safeguards can be put in place, and safety tests carried out in the meantime.

Source

Lam CW, James JLt, McCluskey R and Hunter RL. ToxSci Advance Access published 26, 2003. Pulmonary toxicity of single-wall carbon nanotubes in mice 7 and 90 days after intratracheal instillation.

"much more toxic than carbon black and can be more toxic than quartz, which is considered a serious occupational health hazard in chronic inhalation exposures."

But neither carbon black nor quartz are banned. Instead, proper safety precautions are taken.

Substances much more toxic are used in industrial processes, but under controlled and monitored conditions.

My point exactly: more research needs to be done and the hazards assessed. Disrupting conferences is not the most effective way of doing this.

If you really are interested in the application of nanotubes I suggest you Google the phrase 'carbon nanotubes IOP'

Dear Troll

I think someone already pointed you towards the work of ETC group (www.etcgroup.org) whose publications deal at length with the sort of questions you are asking but i'm going to be charitable and assume thaty your purpose on these boards is to draw out analysis in a public way. So i'm going to answer some of the various questions you've asked:

What is nanotechnology?
There isn't one nanotechnology but rather a range of nanoscale technologies. they range from applications that are already on the market (nanosized particles with unusual behaviours because of the influence of quantum physics at this level) through to devices with tiny components, through to altering dna, viruses and otehr living structures on the nano-level (called nanobiotechnology). the Science fiction view of nanotech as little robots that run around your blood stream or self replicate to reshuffle atoms is presently just that 'science fiction' and won't exist for several decades if at all. Nanotech researchers are largely replacing this vision of little robots with a more biological based notion of 'soft machines', harnessing the natural nanomachinery of life to do new things like deliver drugs more precisely or self assemble into new materials.

Nanotubes - as toxic as asbestos?
nanoparticles are the first wave of this nanotechnology industry (and not even such a new wave - there have been artificial nanoparticle in some cosmetics for 5-10 years. the fact that nanoparticles raise new toxicity problems is widely accepted in the scientific community - there's actually a lot of data on nanoparticle toxicity from air pollution studies (in air pollution nanoparticles are called 'ultrafine particles' and occur when you burn something at high temeperatures like in an incinerator. The royal society recently produced a large report (see www.nanotec.org.uk) which dealt at some length with nanoparticle toxicity, the fact that their size means they can get easily around the body, cross the lung, blood brain barrier and skin and that the small size of nanoparticles (and therefore larger surface area) makes them much more biologically active. Nanotubes have come in for particular concern - excatly because they look so much like asbestos fibres. the first person to make this link was Dr Mark Weisner of Rice University's centre for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) - the leading experts on nanotoxicology in the US. Swiss Reinsurance has also made this comparison as has the UK's Heltha nd Safety Executive and its US equivalent NIOSH. Studies by both Du Pont and NASA found nanotubes to be more toxic than carbon in its usual form and in the NASA study more toxic than quartz dust which causes silicosis. As there is a multi billion dollar industry being built on carbon nanotubes and massive investment by teh likes of IBM, NEC, DU Pont there's a serious corporate effort underway to find data that will disprove this toxicity - not with much success so far. in the meantime (unlike say quartz dust) there are NO regulations, NO agreed safety precautions and not even any agreement on how to assess and measure the toxicity of carbon nanotubes. Thomas Swan and Co however are moving ahead with producing large quantities, products are coming to market that have nanotube in them (eg babolat tennis raquets or renault car parts and next year NEC batteries). From what i can see about it the reason it was probably considered appropriate to disrupt that conference was because Harry Swan was using it as an opportunity to promote his carbon nanotube business which is about releasing nanotubes in the absence of any nanotech safety regs.

'- about the military use of nanotechnologies.'
In the USA close to a billion dollars a year of government money flows into nanotech research - around half of that is for military research. that money is split between seemingly defensive work on stronger materials for armour, sensors for chemical and biological weapons and more offensive applications. the offensive applications include: tiny triggers for detonating mini-nukes, using nanoparticles for better explosives, microcapsules with nanothin walls which can be triggered to release anaesthics on crowds, or turned into bioweapons. there is also a significant effort to "enhance the warfighter" - ie give soldiers new capabilities such as night vision, stronger muscles, built in drug delivery etc - the public part of which is going on at MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology (see  http://web.mit.edu/isn/). In the long term there are concerns about nanorobots and nanomachines that could be used in combat situations but that is still scifi at present - the existing work is worrisome enough. I should explain that CRN (Centre for responsible nanotech) come from the wild sci-fi faction of the nanotech community. they are true believers in making nanorobots so I would take what they have to say on a subject with a healthy pinch of salt..


- about how nanosensors will increase control and surveillance.

"so do CCTvs. I say, let's ban them. " - a lot of people do say this. privacy is certainly one important issue that is very pertinent to those organised in networks of dissent but in the case of nanosensors the impact on skilled workers is also an issue. Take farming for example where sensor system (increasingly with nano-components that improve sensing) are being designed for monitoring crop health or state of the fields. Seen one way this helps the farmer by lessening the work he has to do. Seen another way it replaces skilled knowledge and you no longer need to hire farmhands to do. it also allows a single farmer to control larger areas of land with less labour because he doesn't need to be scouting his crops (the sensors do that for him) - as such its a technology that bolsters large scale monoculture farming systems and helps erode agricultural labour market. Ultimately however its not individual farmers that will benefit from having sensors scattered over their land - the large grain traders will be in a position to aggregate the date from hundreds of thousands of farms and then use it competitively to set prices low, to reccomend/instruct the farmer on what to plant, when to harvest. Seed companies like monsanto could also use such sensors a bit like spyware or cookies, mixed up with bags of seed, to monitor that farmers are using the right herbicide as specified in technology contracts.

'- about how nanotechnology will strengthen corporate power and allow patents on matter.

there's an international movement of social justice advocates, farmers, peasants, indiginous, faith bodies, activists and more strongly opposed to the granting of patents (that is legal corporate ownership monopolies' on living organisms and parts of life (genes). this is partly ethical - (the genetic commons should be free from corporate privatization) and partly practical since such patents are then used by corporations such as Monsanto to extract royalties from those using 'their' seeds. Patents on the nanoscale go more fundamental since they allow the molecules and atoms that make up life and non-life to be owned. it is even possible to patent elements - either new elements (such as americurium patented by Glen Seaborh in the 1960's) or 'elements in a purified/modified form' such as carbon nanotubes. besides it being offensive to give monopoly power over the very base of matter to the worlds largest corporations such patents will also be used to extend their economic power. For example carbon nanotubes (back to those again!) are likely to be used in a wide range of very different industrial sectors - from strengthen materials in defence to new way of delivering pharmaceuticals to flat screen televisions and also nanowires in computer chips. Whoever has the basic paptents on carbon nanotubes (prob IBM or NEC) can then use those patents to license and control developments in each of these areas... this is likely to lead to new rounds of corporate mergers and agreemenst strengthening concentration of power. This is exactly what we saw in biotech where patents on genes led first to licensibg agreements between agriculture and pharmaceuticial business and then mergers to create giant 'life sciences' companies such as Novartis, Zeneca and Monsanto. With patents on matter we shoudl expect the emergence of matter Moguls as companies like IBM cease to be simply a computer company and also become a powerful force in pharmaceuticals or materials production etc..

What's unique about patenst and nanotech? You can patent any discovery.

No - You can patent an Invention (not a discovery) - and it has to exhibit novelty, usefulness and an inventive step. Simple discovery (eg of genes or elements) was not supposed to be in the doctrine of patentability but was made so by a fairly perverse supreme court ruling in 1980 of the USPTO vs Chakrabarty. That said Patenst are a prety bad system around - originally they were supposed to protect a small inventor from having his or her idea stolen by anotehr by granting a limited monopoly. In reality they discriminate against small inventors by being a) costly to file and b) tradable and challengeable. As a result wealthy corporations are able to buy out small inventors or crush/ignore their patents through expensive legal challenges. Instead patenting has become a system by which corporations accumulate a legal monopoly unto themselves - to the benefit only of their own profit. having molecular monopolies effectively means they can claim ownership at a more fundamental level and broadly across many areas.


- about circumventing disability rights.

Disability can be seen two ways. the mdical model that pharmaceutical companies adopt is that what disables a person is the lack of legs or or hearing and therefore that defect needs to be fixed. The Social model of disability which disabiliy rights folks adopt is that what disables a person is that society does not accomodate difference very well. So buses are designed on the asumption that people have legs, some old buildings are designed on the assumption that men rather than women will work there and so fail to provide female toilets. Both are disabling but you would never consider fixing a woman to be a man so she can work in those building whereas many would like the see the disabled fixed to be 'normal' rather than making society accessible to those with a physical difference. Disabled rights legislation is largely predicated on the social model. A large strand of nanotech work is now foucd on fixing disability and enhancing human performance and the concern by disabled rights activists is this erodes their rights and cultures- for example many in the deaf community are opposed to cochlear impnats which are seen as denying the validity of deaf culture (eg deaf have their own language, own communities). In the US there is case law where the supremne court has ruled that deisabled people with a 'correctable impairment' (ie that can be technologically fixed) should no longer have access to disability rights payments. the message being given out is that society does not want to tolerate and accept diversity of human beings but to fix them, eradicate difference and force them to confrm to something called 'normal' (as defined by who??)

there's plenty more issues but theres a start for you to willfully misrepresent.

It addresses the issues in a sensible, rational and no hysterical fashion, which is what I'd be hoping for all along.

That is exactly the sort of debate we should be having on issues such as this - rather than righteous angels v greedy exploiters.

However, many of the issues you raise are not limited to nanotech but apply to almost all forms of new technology. The patent issue is one such example, as is the military one. You could discuss almost any technology in very similar terms.

The same is true of the disability issue. Many of us have defective eyesight, and thus wear glasses or contact lens. I don't think we'd try to claim disability benefits however, nor do I think we would be allowed them, on the basis of a shortsighted culture.

"the message being given out is that society does not want to tolerate and accept diversity of human beings but to fix them, eradicate difference and force them to confrm to something called 'normal'"

Surely the message that should be given out is that such technology can improve the use of the senses which you already have - such as in the case of glasses. It is certainly a 'difference' I could live without. I think we would be intolerant of someone who wanted to drive a car yet refused to correct his vision.

Analysis: Nano needs research before rules

By Dee Ann Divis
Senior Science & Technology Editor

WASHINGTON, DC, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Concerns are rising over the possible toxicity of nanomaterials and the safety of nanoscale manufacturing, but experts say the field is so new there is not enough research in hand to know what regulations are needed or even if there actually is a safety issue.

"For the most part, all we have is speculation on toxicity," said Mark Wiesner, an expert on the environmental implications of nanotechnology. "Some (nano)materials are likely to be toxic and some are likely to be completely benign, but we don't know."

Nanotechnology, which manipulates materials and manufactures machines on the scale of single atoms, is an emerging field promising new treatments for cancer, new techniques to clean pollution and new materials for a wide range of uses.

Already, new nanomaterials are being created with unique properties and unusual levels of strength. At the nanoscale level familiar materials take on strange characteristics. Gold for example, normally an extremely stable material, becomes a catalyst able to trigger chemical reactions at a particular size in the nanoscale range.

In fact, suggested Nancy Monteiro-Riviere, a toxicologist specializing in nanomaterials at North Carolina State University, the size of a nanomaterial may have to be considered separately from the raw material itself and the planned application when regulations are drafted for nano-derived products.

"The use of cosmetics and sunscreens has been heavily tested in the past," Monteiro-Riviere said. "Most of the nanomaterials that are in these cosmetics are zinc- or titanium-based. They have been tested using classic toxicity screens. They have been regulated based on their chemical composition, not on their size. I have been talking with some of the FDA people who are reevaluating this at the current time."

Monteiro-Riviere and Wiesner, a researcher at Rice University in Houston, corresponded Wednesday with readers during an Internet chat on nanotechnology and the environment sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The problem, they said, is scientists simply do not have enough information yet to know what the risks are in the body or in the environment. Some nanomaterials exist naturally in the environment and should pose no harm. Some materials could be rendered harmless in the environment while other could react with Mother Nature in a detrimental way.

"What is unknown," Wiesner said, "is how these materials will interact with the soup of materials naturally present in water, such as degradation products of leaves, products from bacteria and others. We believe that these materials can drastically change or perhaps dominate the properties of nanomaterials in nature."

In other words, it might be that nanomaterials, once released in nature, take on a natural coat.

"My concern," said Monteiro-Riviere, "is that the fish eat (the "soup" described above), and the people eat the fish."

Earnest efforts are underway to research the health and environmental risks, said Clayton Teague, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. The NNCO is part of an interagency effort to integrate federal nanotechnology activities.

The National Toxicology Program, within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, already has begun a five-year effort to research the toxicology of nanomaterials Teaque said. Some $12 million to $15 million will be devoted to studies focused on nanotubes and buckyballs - both of which are made of carbon -- and quantum dots. Quantum dots are tiny devices made of semi-conductor materials that contain a controlled number of free electrons.

"Many quantum dots are made from heavy metals," said Wiesner, "and those heavy metals are a known environmental concern. Any medical waste would need to be managed."

The government already is looking at such manufacturing and work-related risks, Teague said.

"The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health over the last year has instituted a significant program of research to understand the various paths by which workers might be exposed to nanoscale materials and they have issued ... a statement about their thinking on nanoscale materials in the workplace," Teague told United Press International. "They also will be issuing ... over the next six months or so, recommended practices about how to work with nanoscale materials, to do so in a safe manner."

Other research programs are underway at the National Cancer Institute, which is looking at the safe medical use of nanotechnology, and at the Environmental Protection Agency, Teague said. EPA is studying what happens to nanomaterial when it enters the environment.

Teague estimated it would take a minimum of five years to begin to get a handle on the toxicology of nanomaterials.

In the mean time, he said, it is important to realize any risk is limited, because the amount of nanomaterials in existence right now is very limited and mostly in laboratories.

--

E-mail  ddivis@upi.com

Sceptic, you started the thread by insulting the campaigners for comparing nanotubes to asbestos, and stating that they should "go back to their GCSE textbooks". When a few people googled for the abundant evidence of their similarity and posted it up, you ignored it. When it was put up again, and further info posted where scientists in the field explicitly compare nanotubes to asbestos, you couldn't ignore any longer that your own grasp of the subject is virtually nil.

So now you try to claim that you were really looking for "rational debate" all along! LOL! What a crock of shit.

You similarly claim above that you "stand by [your] assertion that mining He3 from the Moon is a fantasy" on the other article linked:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/01/284548.html
...but once again you've moved the goal posts to salvage your pride: that wasn't your original assertion. You started out on that thread by ridiculing the idea that there is helium on the moon: "this is quite simply wrong, there is no helium 3 on the moon. helium forms no chemical compounds but exists only as a gas. the moon has no atmosphere. if the rest of the analysis is as simplistic and error ridden as this, then it is worthless."
...until someone did a simple google for evidence and proved you were spouting off in ignorance, yet again.

If you really wanted a debate that "addresses the issues in a sensible, rational and no hysterical fashion" (sic), you'd check your facts before charging in with insults that only expose your own ignorance.

carbon nanotubes and asbestos are totally different chemicals.

asbestos, as pointed out earlier, is a form of aluminium silicate. carbon is an element. The only similarity being pointed out is particle size and the possible effect on the lungs. asbestos only became the hazard it did because it was used widely as a building material.

as for the moon:

 http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/prrl/prrl9826.html

 http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~soper/Moon/atmosphere.html

 http://www.iac.es/galeria/mrk/atmo_lun.html

The latter estimates the entire mass of the moon's atmosphere as 10 tonnes. 10% of this is helium from alpha particles decay. This is He 4 and not He 3, which was the point of the original comment.

By comparison, the mass of the Earth's atmosphere is 5,000,000,000,000,000 tonnes.

I think it is a reasonable appoximation to say that Moon's atmosphere is tenuous in the extreme and that the amount of He3 present is thus a tiny fraction of a very small number.

Sceptic, seriously, I studied Comparitive Planetology at university, which included the geology of the moon. One special thing about it is that there is Helium-3 on the moon, deposited in the rocks by the Solar Winds. You know, a quick physics lesson, the Sun is essentially undergoing a Fusion reaction, and one of the products of the fusion of hydrogen is Helium-3, some of which escapes from the sun and flies through the solar system. It doesn't deposit itself on the Earth because we have an atmosphere, but the moon does not have an atmosphere, and as a consequence there are some exotic elements there which are not found on Earth.

It may only be a tiny fraction, but you only need a tiny fraction for a fusion reaction.

Having said that, it seems awfully destructive, to try and process 200 million tonnes of lunar soil only to get a tonne of Helium. Maybe that was the point of the original thread....'Save our Moon'.

In any case, in my own project, I concluded that if we ever got Fusion to work, we would probably get all of our fuel from the sea, through Heavy Water manufacture to create Tritium. Helium-3 is slightly more energy efficient than Tritium, but when you take into account all the effort that would be needed to extract it and bring it down to Earth, it is not the most feasible choice by any means.

But sceptic, here is a post from ABC news, with a quote from the Director of US Planetary Sciences, who I'm sure holds more than a GCSE in Physics, as do I.


 http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200411/s1252715.htm

A potential gas source found on the moon's surface could hold the key to meeting future energy demands as the earth's fossil fuels dry up in the coming decades, scientists say.

Mineral samples from the moon contain abundant quantities of helium-3, a variant of the gas used in lasers and refrigerators.

"When compared to the earth the moon has a tremendous amount of helium-3," Lawrence Taylor, a director of the US Planetary Geosciences Institute, said.

"When helium-3 combines with deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) the fusion reaction proceeds at a very high temperature and it can produce awesome amounts of energy.

"Just 25 tonnes of helium, which can be transported on a space shuttle, is enough to provide electricity for the US for one full year."

Helium-3 is deposited on the lunar surface by solar winds and would have to be extracted from moon soil and rocks.

To extract helium-3 gas the rocks have to be heated above 800 degrees Celsius.

Dr Taylor says 200 million tonnes of lunar soil would produce one tonne of helium.

Only 10 kilograms of helium-3 are available on earth.

Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam has told the International Conference on Exploration and Utilisation of the Moon that the barren planet held about 1 million tonnes of helium-3.

"The moon contains 10 times more energy in the form of helium-3 than all the fossil fuels on the earth," Mr Kalam said.

Reactor

However, Dr Taylor says that the reactor technology for converting helium-3 to energy is still in its infancy and could take years to develop.

"The problem is that there is not yet an efficient type of reactor to process helium-3," he said.

"It is currently being done mostly as a laboratory experiment. Right now at the rate which it (research) is proceeding it will take another 30 years."

Other scientists say that the reactor would be safe in terms of radioactive elements and could be built right in the heart of any city.

"Potentially there are large reservoirs of helium-3 on the moon," DJ Lawrence, a planetary scientist at the US Los Alamos National Laboratory, said.

"Just doing reconnaissance where the minerals are and to find out where helium-3 likes to hang out is the first step, so when the reactor technology gets to work we are ready and have precise information.

"It really could be used as a future fuel and is safe. It is not all science fiction.

"There are visionaries out there and now the question arises where the funds come from. If people get on board to do it there is no doubt it could be done."

Dr Taylor echoed Dr Lawrence's views, adding that there are no funds available for funding non-petroleum energy projects in the United States.

He warns of the exhaustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas on earth.

"By 2050 the whole world will have a major problem. We need to be thinking ahead," Mr Taylor said.

"Right now we are not thinking ahead enough. Some of us are. But then the people who make the decisions and put money on the projects are not. They think only about the next elections.

"If we set our hearts on the moon and have the money to do it, then we do it pretty fast.

"However, it could be done well within 10 years if the sources of finance are generated to get this (reactor) going."

- AFP


Sceptic, please don't simply troll and assume that nobody here knows what they are talking about. One, some activists have, shock horror, degrees in different subjects, and actually are struggling against the ignorance of the right-wing which fails to acknowledge, for example, Climate Change, despite the expert opinion of respected climatologists. Two, a scientific degree isn't always neccessary to understand that something is dodgy, for example, playing with the genetic code of the foods we're eating.

Scientists aren't always wise. It is a single minded profession that doesn't always take into account wider issues, and the inter-relationships between specialities. And sometimes they regret the forces they have unleashed ( for example Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb ).

Activists aren't always wise either, but they are the wake-up call that is seeing, don't just simply blunder on without regard for the consequences of what we are doing. Without paying attention to the fact that society and the environment is sick, and declining, and science isn't the cure for that, and a long hard look at ourselves and the way we are organised is.

If my posts are more intemperate than I sometimes intend, it is perhaps irritation at the smugness of people like THRONG:

The Heavenly Righteous Opposed to Nanotech Greed

The new irregular verb: we are righteous, you are greedy.


“The same greedy corporations who messed with the genetic basis of life are now seeking to alter and privatize nature right down to the atomic level”, explained THRONG spokesangel Pandora Spocks.

Surely the word greedy is redundant here - it is a sine qua non that corporations are greedy.

“ .. seeking to alter and privatize nature right down to the atomic level”

Great intellectual debate.

I don't have issues with those who know what they are talking about, but people in white sheets ....

I like the trolling, and feeding the trolls.

If it wasn't for sceptic, the level of debate on Indymedia would be limited to 'I think Nanotechnology is bad', 'I agree'.

Instead, we have a long thread of useful information regarding the topic.

Sometimes trolling is very annoying, like regarding the issue of Israel-Palestine, where after writing a 4 paragraph response, fully referenced, to what is sometimes only a 2 sentence comment by a zionist troll, the same argument begins again on a different thread, and maybe the same, maybe a different troll makes the exact same comment you had just spent an hour refuting. It's kind of tiring.
I think I should just save all the responses I write and simply cut and paste them when neccessary.

But usually the trolls inspire a deeper level of thought and debate. In fact, I think some people troll just to do that.

So God bless the trolls. May they live long, and intimidate many naive Billie Goats.

Dear Sceptic,
please don't read too much into the name "The Heavenly Righteous Against Nano Greed" or "THRONG" it was a joke made up by a bunch of very tired angels writing a press release having had very little sleep and getting a little carried away with Heavenly metaphors.

love from the An Angel

Hermes seems to be saying that if it wasn't for trolls, Indymedia would just be a bunch of nodding activists agreeing with each other. Well I... erm... disagree. :)
It's not a binary choice between total consensus and all-out flame war. There's a very wide middle ground between the two.

Good, frequent critique from outside the "activist ghetto" is essential for good activism, and the more it comes from people with widely varying viewpoints, backgrounds and ideologies the better IMHO.

But a more productive criticism might have been worded less aggressively, for instance:
"I can't see any similarity at all between nanotubes and asbestos. Where's your evidence for this? There's none given in your article, only an assertion."

I see sceptic's just posted a thoughtful critical comment on a very short "report" about US intervention in Ukraine:
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/12/302679.html

Excellent. I was thinking exactly the same thing as I read the article: "I keep hearing that the US has been pumping money into the Yushchenko campaign, but can't find any hard evidence, just lots of reported rumour and allegation."

You're very welcome here, sceptic. Hurray for rational scepticism.

Hey sceptic...

i admire your persistence

on nanotubes and asbestos: - yes of course they are different chemicals. What makes them similar is their shape - long needlelike particles - as well as the size similarities. If you think the phrase 'asbestos-like' is inappropriate you should also complain to the various toxicologists, insurance companies (eg swiss re) and science and media reports who make those comparisons. I don't think the angels are being at all ignorant in repeating this widely held comparison

"Surely the word greedy is redundant here - it is a sine qua non that corporations are greedy. " - for you and people on indymedia maybe but this is a press release that you are referring to and is written i assume for a much larger audience as an explanation of the reasons behind an action. the world at large doesn't neccesarily jump to the conclusion that all corporations are greedy. They might think microsoft and monsanto are greedy but that sainsburys and cadburys are quite nice. (wrong in my humble opinion)

“ .. seeking to alter and privatize nature right down to the atomic level” - i don't see whats wrong about this statement. nanotechnology is all about altering matter and the properties of matter at the atomic level. nano patents grant private monopolies on structures at the atomic level. There are currently around 10,000 nanopatents being granted a year. I think its a legitimate ethical stance to be worried about the reach of corporate power over the fundamental builidng blocks of matter. Your comment here was "Great intellectual debate". once again you are critiquing a press release not an essay. A press releaase is intended to tell a journalist that something has happened which may be newsworthy, to offer them indications as to why it happened and in this case to offer some choice bits of opinion from those involved in what happened.

"I don't have issues with those who know what they are talking about, but people in white sheets ...."
So you assume the angels didn't know what they were talking about because they chose to convey themselves in a novel attention-grabbing attire... ie because they were also rather imaginative. What clothes do people need to wear for you to assume they know what they are talking about? lab coats? tweed jackets? c'mon you've rather lost your rationalist high ground here. It seems to me that the angels knew a lot more about the issues raised around nanotechnology than you did and they summarised some of these (by all means not all) of those reasonably effectively as good conversation starting points (as evidenced by this marathon discussion thread here on indymedia!)

Where i would agree is that the word Righteous was ill-advised but its a fairly minor point and if 'an angel' says it was the result of tired press release writing angels getting carried away on a joke then fair enuff.

Incidentally it would be good from time to time to acknowledge that we have learned things and changed our opinions through these sort of posting processes (me, i've learned there is helium on the moon - thankyou)..

"changing your mind is one of the best ways
of finding out whether or not you still have one.
Or even that minds are like parachutes,
that it doesn't matter what you pack
them with so long as they open
at the right time. "
-Taylor Mali see  http://www.taylormali.com/index.cfm?webid=15&showPrint=true

nano nano..

The trouble with stunts is that they are not taken seriously. The press [and were there any reports in the press?] latch onto the white sheets and not onto the message. The businessmen in the audience just get pissed off.

If you want to scare the businessmen off, then get an academic to act as a front man, and give the findings of the reports of the health hazards, give them some figures for asbestos compensation, and ask them to draw their own conclusions. Might not be as much fun, but more productive in the long run.

Personally, I think both the benefits and the hazards of nanotech are overhyped, but perhaps that's my innate conservatism.

You won't get a decent regulatory regime in place, however, unless you can point to research that carries some authority, and get the powers that be on your side. Not everyone is greedy, surprisingly enough. And you can get governments to listen if you do it the right way - and white sheets won't do that.

What does distress me is an apparent mistrust of any new technology. Perhaps in the 50s and 60s we were too enthusiastic about them; now, it seems, any new technology is greeted with almost automatic opposition. I'm sure nanotech has a lot to offer, and firms are not going to rush into applying it willynilly if they know they might be sued if it goes wrong.

> If you want to scare the businessmen off, then get an academic to act as a front man,
> and give the findings of the reports of the health hazards, give them some figures for
> asbestos compensation, and ask them to draw their own conclusions. Might not be as much > fun, but more productive in the long run.

Nah fuck it, you _should_ have fun. _You_ can be miserable and serious if you want, but don't try and force me to.

It's a lot more empowering and a lot more of a challenge to do something yourself than to wait for an 'expert' to do it for you. After all ex is a has been and spurt is a drip under pressure.

If something is obviously a bad idea then mass c.d. or direct action can have a massive impact. I don't want to advocate some kind of mob rule, but empowered people taking action on stuff that is going to affect their lives.

> You won't get a decent regulatory regime in place, however, unless you can point to
> research that carries some authority, and get the powers that be on your side. Not

Yeh but who's going to pay for that other than large companies? That's part of the problem innit? the majority of research that's going on is what can we do with this rather than how dangeropus is it what could the impacts be.

> What does distress me is an apparent mistrust of any new technology.

precautioary principle? isn't it good to be slightly sceptical about things?

you might enjoy yourself on your demos, but it's certainly not the most effective way to sway Government departments.

As it happens, I came across this:

 http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20041227&s=schapiro

If nanotubes are to be produced commercially, then they will have to checked out for hazard.

hey sceptic..

Firstly, Nanotubes ARE produced commercially and they've never ahd to be approved seperately - you can call up Thomas Swann todaya nd order a few grams of nanotubes (they're pricey though) or you can go down to a tennis shop and buy a babolat Nanotube VS tennis racket or you can check out the nanotubes distributed through certain renault car body parts or wait till early next year for the nanotube batteries that will ship with NEC laptops.

Secondly, the EU REACH regulations on new chemicals will make no difference to this at present. A carbon nanotube is not a new chemical. its a very old chemical (carbon) whose atoms are rearranged in a different way. to the regulators its just graphite.. even if to toxicologists its a bit more similar to asbestos.. This is teh point of nanoparticles - you can no longer simply asses them by chemical composition alone. you also have to consider the impact of shape and size. REACH doesn't know how to do that. It was drafted before nano-toxicology issues surfaced.

....

I'm not too worried about nanoparticles and the like at the moment. The government just commissioned a study on this and is due to reply to concerns about the gap in regulations they pointed out. The report is due out in January. Similarly, the people responsible for the EU legislation have also been made aware of this gap. If either or both of these ignore the recommendations that new nanoparticles be treated as if they were new chemicals and tested under existing legislation, then I think it would be fair to say that THEN there would be a problem.

As for the tennis balls and the laptops, these nanoparticles will be embedded not free so I'm not sure what the worry is about them. We happily scoff down mayonnaise, take a deep breath of sea air or light candles yet all of these things produce free nanoparticles.

So I'm a sceptic about a lot of the things you have brought up. I realise that there are lots of real worries about patents (although a lot of the nano patents are NOT equivalent to GM patents because they are on structures designed and created by scientists.. not just discovered like the tube or the buckyball). Even so, it is so hard to produce carbon nanotubes in anything than small quantities that whoever finds a way of doing large scale and high quality will have to invent something clever and therefore will be able to patent it.

My feeling is that a lot of the concerns about nanotechnolgoy are actually a broader discussion about technology itself and how it impacts on society. I don't think the fact that the patent system is flawed can be blamed on nanotech alone.

What I really want to know is this. You highlight the fact that treatments for deafness are a threat to disability rights. From what i understand this comes from concerns that a "cure" for deafness could mean that deaf people felt obliged to take it in order to be normal. Sorry if I misphrase this, this is the best of my understanding of the argument.

To this I would respond this way.

I look at it like this, when you get old you go deaf. Whenever my grandmother is in a crowd of people she looks like a little lost girl, she cannot hear what her family are talking about from the hubub and even when we try to include her the background noise of other people talking can mean we have to shout, which is not nice. Its isolating. But a lot of people get deaf when they get old. Would I want some way of treating her deafness, you bet I would. Would she? It would mean the world to her to be the social butterfly she used to be. AND I've spent a lot of time listening to my personal stereo and going to loud gigs, I;m under no illusion that I will have good hearing when I am old. So for me, and many others, finding a treatment for deafness is the hope of retaining an independent and dignified old age. For a minority of people, who are born deaf and have their cultural identity in being deaf, such a hypothetical treatment might be difficult. And I can see that to call it a "cure" might offend a small minority, so lets call it a treatment instead.

But treatments (or cures) are options. Many people already refuse treatments or cures on moral or ethical or religious grounds, such as blood transfusion. The point is though, we wouldn't say that all blood transfusion shoudl be stopped right now, or research into better transfusion, because a minority finds it disagreable. Similarly, with a treatment for deafness it would be wrong to deny the option of a better life to many millions of peopole, becuase of the difficult decisions this would offer the very small number of people who are born profoundly deaf and wish to stay that way.



bb98