A Little Greatness
by Charlie Tims
The report recommended that Nanoparticles should be treated as new substances under UK and EU legislation, and that policy approaches should be drenched in the precautionary principle. We organised a seminar on Friday, bringing together key players in the debate to discuss the report's implications.
The report also discussed that fact that hardly anyone in the UK actually knows what Nanotechnology is yet. If you feel similarly unsure, here's a mini-briefing:
Nanotechnology refers to the creation and manipulation of matter at the nano-scale, between about 0.1 to 100 nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter - a human hair is about 80,000 nanometers wide. At this scale, elements change their properties: gold, for example, is usually pretty inert, but becomes a highly effective catalyst at the nanoscale. In addition, once things get this tiny, the potential for quantum behavior is introduced. The possibilities may well be endless.