We received a rebuke over our recent comments about the blind leading the blind, or in this case the argument about the safety of nanotechnologies between one bunch of people who don’t know every much about nanotechnologies and another bunch of people who, er, dont seem to to know very much about nanotechnologies. At the risk of more accusations of elitism, we are quite happy to admit that we don’t know a great deal about the toxicology , or otherwise, of many nanomaterials, but we do know some people who do, and some people with the money to fund the research. While these kind of debates can go on forever, as with the Drexlerian vision of nanotechnology, until someone actually does the research its all just so much hot air, so just give us the facts, maam.
A recent paper on the solubility of buckyballs neatly illustrates this point. Despite fullerenes having been around for what feels like forever, there is still a great deal that we dont understand, including a lot of the basics on their toxicology, solubility, and interaction with the environment. A similar situation exists with nanoparticles, something that we will be discussing in more detail at the 1st Engineered Fine Particle Applications Conference in Boston later this month.
In general, we applaud the activists. If both sides of the debate have few facts to go on, then their is a natural tendency to invoke the precautionary principle, and no matter how much enthusiasm or vested interest their may be in nanotechnologies, this has to be the sensible route. While the activists may not know much about the technology, they are at least getting the issue onto the agenda, and as a result of the activities of the ETC groups mixing of science fiction and science fact to make the future look far scarier than it really is, environmental aspects of nanotechnologies are firmly on the agenda.
The end result is that governments are funding scientists to find out the real facts, something that was perhaps lacking with GMOs, and as a result we stand to benefit from the upside of nanotechnologies, while understanding and managing the potential downside.