Sing us a song, you're the nanoman
by Jack Stilgoe
Running really low on nano puns. No bad thing.
Just got back back from the annual Nanotechnology schmoozathon in Los Angeles. For most of the four days, I was more ethnographer than contributor. But there was a thoughtful session on "nanotechnology and society". I talked about See-through Science and our Nanodialogues project. Others, including Julia Moore and Don Reed, discussed the lessons from the GM saga. There was also talk of risk research and standards-setting.
The odd thing was that, while our session was not exactly overflowing, all of the big policy keynotes mentioned "public perception" or "social impacts" as major concerns. It's almost as though everyone knows they should think about these things, but doesn't know how.