The promise and perils of the nanotech revolution / Possibilities range from disaster to advances in medicine, space
Published 4:00 am, Monday, July 26, 2004
Nanotechnology could revolutionize science, technology, medicine and space exploration.
Nanotechnology could ravage the environment, eliminate jobs and lead to frightening new weapons of war.
Those are two extreme takes on the hottest, and potentially most controversial, new technology since biotech and PCs.
For years, science fiction writers and techno-visionaries have imagined the construction of "nano"-size -- one nanometer equals a billionth of a meter -- molecules and machines that could clean cholesterol from your bloodstream, break down chemical spills and lead to superstrong new materials. The late physicist Richard Feynman once said, "There's plenty of room at the bottom" -- by which he meant humans could re-engineer atoms and molecules to do humanity's bidding.
But there have also been warnings of nano-machines that might race out of control, mass-replicating like bacteria and reducing Earth's surface into what a few nanotechnologists call a "gray goo."
Few experts take that scenario seriously, but in recent months, the less frightening potential health and environmental impacts of nano-gadgets have drawn increasing attention.
The possibility that one type of nanotech -- large carbon molecules called fullerenes -- damages fish brains is described in this month's issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. It's just the latest in a series of studies by researchers around the world who are investigating the impacts of fullerenes and other nanotechnologies on health and environment.
"It is likely than nanomaterials can affect wildlife if they are accidentally released into the environment. ... (It) is possible that effects in fish may also predict potential effects in humans," said the article's author, Eva Oberdorster of Southern Methodist University. She based the warning on her study of the impact of fullerenes on the brains of largemouth bass in a fish tank.
Discovered in the 1980s, fullerenes are the third known type of pure carbon molecules; the others are diamond and graphite. The name is short for "Buckminsterfullerenes," a moniker that the discoverers of the molecule (who later won the Nobel Prize) awarded in honor of the late architect-engineer Buckminster Fuller.
Fuller had nothing to do the discovery of fullerenes, but their soccer ball shape reminded the scientists of a two-sided version of his famous geodesic domes. The molecules also are known familiarly as "buckyballs," each of which contains 60 or 70 carbon atoms.
This year, Mitsubishi Corp. is planning to manufacture thousands of tons of buckyballs. Their many possible applications range from carrying drugs to various parts of the body, like tiny submarines, to use in new types of electronic products.
Although Oberdorster stresses that the damage to the fishes' brains is subtle and doesn't affect their behavior, her discovery suggests that industry should "go cautious" in mass-manufacturing fullerenes, lest they leak into the environment.
"If such preventative principles had been applied to compounds such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), significant environmental damage could have been avoided," she writes in her article.
She's not alone in her observations. About 20 papers were published in 2003 and 2004 about the impact of fullerenes on animals and cell cultures, but there were "disagreements in data from different laboratories," said an April report by E. Clayton Teague, director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, which is funding extensive research into the health and environmental effects of fullerenes and other nanotechnologies.
Decades ago, chemical companies sometimes marketed new products whose health and environmental impacts they hadn't adequately tested. No longer, said chemistry Prof. Vicki Colvin of Rice University -- in part because of the financial consequences of lawsuits and widespread negative publicity.
"A lot of young chemists are committed to not letting that happen again," said Colvin, who is also engaged in studying the health effects of fullerenes. "Companies really have paid the price, and they continue to pay the price, for ignoring environmental concerns early in technology's history."
Still, optimism springs eternal.
"Nanoscience will make the physical sciences as sexy as the life sciences were in the last 10 years," Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., said at an Energy Department-run "NanoSummit" in late June in Washington.
Despite the concerns of some scientists and environmentalists about the possibly adverse impact of nanotechnologies, "we don't have a fear of things going sour (for nanotechnology) in the long term. ... The advance of the field is inexorable. It's a powerhouse. This is not something that can be stopped," said Christine Peterson, president of the pro-nanotechnology Foresight Institute in Palo Alto.
At the DOE conference last month, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham praised nanotech's economic potential. But he also cautioned the 340 attendees: "Major questions such as the ethical and safety implications of advanced nanoscience research and the proper role of government in this research should be examined by groups such as this on a regular basis if we are to see this technology flourish."
Insurance companies fear a repeat of the asbestos catastrophe, which resulted in a deluge of lawsuits from the 1970s on and severely strained their coffers.
"Questions abound regarding the opportunities and, from an insurance perspective, the hazards of nanotechnology," said a report issued in May by the reinsurance firm Swiss Re. "What makes nanotechnology completely new from the point of view of insuring against risk is the unforeseeable nature of the risks it entails and the recurrent and cumulative losses it could lead to, given the new properties, hence different behavior, of nanotechnologically manufactured products."
Nanotech recently caught the eye of Britain's Prince Charles, who frequently speaks out on environmental issues. Writing in the English newspaper Independent on July 11, he recalled the thalidomide catastrophe of the 1960s, which left numerous children deformed.
It "would be surprising if nanotechnology did not offer similar upsets unless appropriate care and humility is observed," wrote the future king.
Americans hold a somewhat contradictory view of nanotechnology. On the one hand, they have a "generally positive" view of the potential benefits and safety of nanotechnology -- yet at the same time, "most Americans do not trust business leaders in the nanotechnology (field) to minimize potential risks to humans," according to a telephone survey of 1,536 Americans released July 14 by political scientist Michael Cobb and his colleagues at North Carolina State University.
Specifically, 60 percent said they had "not much trust" in nanotech businesses' sense of responsibility, and only 5 percent expressed "a lot" of trust.
In the survey, the most feared possible risk was "losing personal privacy to tiny new surveillance devices," which was cited as the No. 1 concern of 32 percent of the respondents. Others expressed concern about a "nanotechnology- inspired arms race," nanoparticles "that accumulate in your body," and "the uncontrollable spread of self-replicating nano-robots" like those depicted in the Michael Crichton novel "Prey."
Research into the safety issues around nanotechnology is quickly becoming big science. Although it has been conducted relatively quietly until recently, federal funding for research into the health and environmental effects of nanotechnology is heavy and has risen sharply in recent years, Teague's report said. In federal fiscal year 2004, the funding is $106 million (11 percent of the entire U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative budget), compared to $56 million in fiscal year 2001.
One of the recipients is Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, which, according to Teague's document, is studying topics that include ways that nanoparticles are transported and altered in the environment, including within air, water, living organisms and cells, including the cells' genetic material. Other recipients of the funding include the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation (which, in turn, is funding studies by UC Davis, UC Berkeley and other campuses), the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Defense and others.
Perhaps the most unusual proposed use of nanotechnology is for the construction of an "elevator to space." Using superstrong types of fullerenes known as carbon nanotubes, payloads could be lofted into space via cables from orbiting platforms. Such a cable would have to be extraordinarily strong -- stronger than existing materials -- and some nanotechnology fans claim that carbon nanotubes fill the bill. In theory, they're almost 100 times stronger than steel.
However, there's a catch: Carbon nanotubes, like other fullerenes and nanotech materials, would be extremely small and lightweight and could remain aloft indefinitely. If nanotubes flaked off the space elevator, like rust off metal, they might be inhaled by people or other organisms, with as-yet unknown health or environmental effects.
"The effects of extremely small fibers in the tissues of the body are unknown. ... Animal studies are only just beginning," said health physicist Ron Morgan of Los Alamos National Laboratory in a September 2003 report on environmental issues associated with the space elevator.
In an online copy of his report, he cautions researchers who investigate the possible health effects of nanotubes to handle them with care: "Don't be the guinea pig!"
Types of carbon molecules
Diamond -- Diamonds get their hardness by the way carbon atoms are connected to each other in all three dimensions.
Buckminsterfullerene -- Commonly called "buckyballs" or "fullerenes," this form of carbon can be manufactured but is also found in nature. Scientists hope to use this carbon molecule to deliver medicine and develop uses for electronics.
Nanotube -- Nanotubes are a type of fullerene. Nanotubes are theoretically 100 times stronger than steel. Some proponents envision nanotubes being used in a sort "elevator to space."
Graphite -- Pencil "lead" is made of graphite; two-dimensional layers of carbon atoms called graphene that easily slip off the point of a pencil when we write.
Source: Materials Research Science and Engineering Center; University of Wisconsin