A team of British researchers is raising new and serious questions about the health risks posed by nanoparticles.

They are bacteria-killers, more and more common in products we use every day and at least a million of them will fit on the head of a pin. But are silver nanoparticles safe?
Little is known about the health effects of these inventions.

Many public health activists cheered this week’s announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency that it plans to actually move ahead with research to better understand how manufactured nanomaterials may harm human health and the environment.

Touted as our next Industrial Revolution, the use of nano particles continues to sweep across the global business world like the high tech tsunami it is.
Inventions and new applications fly off laboratory benches and out of clean rooms faster than patents can be filed or danger to public health even assessed.
Globally, sales of nano-based products [...]

Home much liquid did you consume today?  Was it clean?  Will you become ill, spawn a deformed child, get cancer, die a lingering death?
In an attempt to head off some of the pithy comments accusing me of being a fear monger, let me admit that, in this case, I am.
I don’t think most of us [...]

Cutting edge nanoscience has put an end to the icky white coating of old sunscreens that that prevented the sun from harming your skin.
But scientists for consumer and environmental groups say that while nanosized sun-blocking ingredients like titanium dioxide and zinc oxide now rub on clear instead of white, very few of the engineered materials [...]

One might think that a food-shipping container coated with nanoparticles that have been proven to destroy bacteria causing illness and death would be a coveted innovation.
Apparently not so.
William Norwood, president of nanoAgri Systems, said the Environmental Protection Agency told him that he wasn’t permitted to market his company’s new nanosilver, antibacterial packaging.
“This just doesn’t make [...]

For centuries, silver has been used for its ability to destroy bacteria — from ancient Romans treating their water with silver coins to NASA using the metal to purify water aboard the Space shuttle.
Four decades ago, silver nitrate became one of the most effective treatments for fighting infection in serious burns. While silver’s antibacterial properties [...]

I have completed the “everything you need to know about nanotechnology” workshop that the Knight Science Journalism gang was kind enough to host at MIT. I finally graduated from something.
Three observations from the week in Boston:
1.    I can’t believe how little I know.
2.    I am amazed at the potential for good and a bit uneasy [...]

It’s Monday night and I’m in Cambridge, Mass.  MIT has graciously lowered its standards and is allowing me to participate in a week-long workshop on nanotechnology.
And, yes, for those of you who paid close attention, I did attend a conference on nanotechnology in food last week at the Institute of Food Technologists in California.
It’s not [...]