It is the wonderful world of nanotechnology with its expectations and fictions that should deliver us a wealth of technologically unsurpassed solutions for many applications in our future daily lives. It seems that besides the bright aspects for novel products, gear and probably gadgets in a world focused on high-tech, that the downside of this technology prodigy has not been sufficiently taken into account.
Well, nanotechnology is expected to revolutionize all the areas where structures dive down deep into the realm of the tiniest sizes ever encountered in practical applications working in almost atomically precise spots. In a nutshell: micromechanical systems in all kinds of usage should benefit, also flat-panel display technique, semiconductor manufacturing and test, and in the long-term almost certainly the manufacture of systems as we see it today in wide areas of board assembly. Besides the reasonable ideas, there is also a lot of fiction around this technology. More than 30 years ago a film was produced where a rescue team in a ship was shrunken to about the size of a pin’s head to travel the veins of a human being to work a blood clot. So far, merely an inspired science-fiction movie. However, does this novel and glitzy technology have only enjoyable virtues as many optimistic prophets of the age of technology want to make us believe? Or are there other aspects which are not being frankly discussed?
Yes, indeed. There are risks involved with the application of nanotechnology in both realms, the biomedical/molecular (maybe combined with manipulating the DNA code of humans, animals or plants) and the high-tech electronics by dealing with hazardous substances in manufacturing and use of the product. The question must be asked: are these moves based on highly ethical insight?
It is known to many scientists that nanoparticles or nanostructures and biological systems have a problem of “interfacing” to each other. That means that nanoparticles brought into living organisms or cells can have harmful results to the being. Nanoparticles from materials which are under so-called “normal” conditions are inert and don’t dissolve into biological systems can change their behavior then. For example, the precious metal gold widely used in many applications will as nano-crystal react with proteins. Critics of nanotechnology point to the potential toxity of new classes of nanosubstances that could adversely affect the stability of cell walls or disturb the immune system when inhaled or digested. There is an extremely high potential that nanoparticles in drinking water or in the air could be dangerous. Also, an often cited worst-case scenario (whether true or not) is the so-called gray goo, a hypothetical substance into which the surface objects of the earth might be transformed by self-replicating nanobots running amok, a process which has been termed global ecophagy.
These are just some examples to show some of the risks already discussed by scientists. On a global scale there are groups now working assisting in the information and strategy as a necessary basis for a guidance towards safe handling and use of nanoproducts by researchers, workers and consumers or users. The development of nanotechnology standards in this respect is one side of the medal, the other comes back to the question of how responsible will we deal with our neighbors, ourselves and the environment when using such a precarious technology? I would dare to draw a comparison with gentechnology or the use of atomic energy which started 50 years ago: in the wrong hands it will be a global evil, rightly used it can be of great help for all of us. It’s obviously a dance on the knife’s edge playing with the Creator’s power.
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