Monthly Archives: June 2010

Jello, microsystems, and kids

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It’s a little outside my usual topic range but I’m extending the category since I’ve done it before just because I felt like it and because one of the moving forces behind this project (Eric Lagally) is a member of the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Group at the University of British Columbia (Canada). Lagally and his colleagues have devised a safe and inexpensive way for kids to make microfluidic devices. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Microfluidics, they [Lagally and colleagues] note, has the potential to revolutionize medicine and biology, reducing an entire laboratory of instruments for analyzing blood, urine, and other materials to the size of a postage stamp. Until now, however, hands-on experience with microfluidics has been impossible because of the expense and potentially toxic chemicals involved in making microfluidic devices.

The article [in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry “Using Inexpensive Jell-O Chips for Hands-On Microfluidics Education“] describes using Popsicle-type craft sticks taped to the bottom of a Styrofoam plate to form large-scale versions of the minute channels in actual microfluidic devices.

This sounds like the kind of thing you could do at home.  Bravo!

A few thoughts on business and nanotechnology

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In my response to a comment on yesterday’s posting I was not able to address the issue of  business’ role in nanotechnology safety efforts raised by this sentence,

Parents won’t leap for joy over the suggestion that their children must be exposed to these products, lest a company’s opportunity to move forward in marketing these products for profit be stymied.

As I don’t want to be misleading, it should be noted that the commenter is critical of my stance on risk and nanosunscreens and was using this comment to buttress a more comprehensive argument.

Reading the [July 7, 2011 corrected for grammar] comment earlier today was coincidental with my discovery yesterday of an article by a business owner (Scott Rickert, President and Chief Executive Officer of Nanofilm) about the proposed nanomaterials definitions in bills before the US House of Representatives and Senate (previously mentioned on this blog here).  From Taking the NanoPulse — Toxic Substance Meets Poison Thinking; New toxics legislation aims for safe. But is it sound? (Industry Week website) where Rickert discusses the Safe Chemicals bills and nanotechnology,

… for those of us in the nanotechnology field, there’s an additional wrinkle beyond the chemical formula of our products. Both the House and Senate version of the bill now include size, size distribution, shape and surface structure in the definition of a chemical’s “substance characteristic.” That means that over and above concerns about the chemical formula a nanotechnology company may be using, it may become suspect simply because of its nanoscale charactertics.

Am I worried? No. I know the people in this industry and I believe we have a track record that shows our care at policing ourselves. We’re not monsters. We have families, children and grandchildren, too. Make no mistake, we’re concerned about environmental health and safety in our industry. [emphasis mine] We have rules and programs in place. In addition, companies like mine have been working in special new voluntary reporting programs with the EPA. And, heaven knows, our whole industry has been educating scientists, governments, special interest groups and the general public about nanotechnology for a decade or more.

I think both the commenter and Rickert are right in entirely different ways and somewhat wrong in exactly the same way. Rickert goes on,

So what’s keeping me up at night? Not worries about toxicity and nanotechnology. We can handle that. I’m worried about toxicity in the law-making process. One of the Senate authors of the Bill says, “America’s system for regulating industrial chemicals is broken… Parents are afraid because hundreds of untested chemicals are found in their children’s bodies.”

Is that really where we want to start? Throwing open the door to panic — on both sides? I sat in on a nanotechnology industry conference call recently and the fear of a “witch hunt” was palpable.

If parents are terrified, they’re in the same boat as honest, responsible companies that are making products that improve lives and have long been committed to health and environmental causes. Do you think in this age of BP oil spills and late-night law-firm mesothelioma infomercials that businesses aren’t aware that preventing a problem is better than paying for it later?

To answer Rickert’s question, I think companies are quite aware of the risks and quite willing to pass them on to consumers and citizens in pursuit of an extra dollar.  With that, I’ve agreed with the commenter and now I’m going to agree with Rickert, there are honest responsible companies run by people who care about the environment and health.

Neither the commenter nor Rickert make a distinction I want to introduce about companies/businesses. A vast gulf exists between a small to medium-sized business and a multinational enterprise in terms of revenue and economic impact, perspective on responsibility, connections to their communities, and so on. Someone who’s built up their own business in their community is quite likely to have a different take on acceptable risks than someone who lives a continent away and has no direct ongoing contact with the community in which the business is operating.

Take for example,  Tony Hayward, Group Chief Executive, BP Oil. As I write this, BP Canada (BP Oil’s Canadian subsidiary) has started work on on a well for their coalbed methane project  in an area of British Columbia (Canada) that lies between the internationally famous Banff National Park and Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park which provides a corridor for mountain-dwelling wildlife who move between the two parks. From the news item on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) News,

As oil continues to gush from a BP wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico, critics say the company has quietly broken ground on a controversial project in B.C.’s Rocky Mountains.

Opponents of the Mist Mountain project say they were surprised to find that BP Canada, an arm of the BP group of companies, began construction earlier this month on an exploratory well for its coalbed methane project near Fernie, B.C.

…

But Hejdi Feick, the director of communications for BP Canada, said British Columbians can be reassured that the company is a good corporate citizen.

“We are absolutely committed to doing this right,” she said Tuesday. “We have been very open and accessible over the last three years.”

That is little comfort for [Ryland] Nelson (from the group Wildsight), who said BP had promised to consult with the public every step of the way yet he only learned construction was underway when he went to the site Monday.

Nelson said the contractor on site told him they hope to bring in drilling equipment by the end of the month and start drilling this summer.

“Here they are, they’ve been working for nearly two weeks and nobody knew anything about it,” he said.

Remarkable here is how thoroughly tone deaf the company representative is to the reception this initiative is likely to enjoy. (By the way, I live in British Columbia.)

My point is that you can’t lump all businesses together as being thoroughly unethical in the pursuit of the almighty buck nor can you lump them together as honest, ethical entities being run by people who aren’t “monsters.” (Note: I believe that Rickert was using the word to make a point about business owners being people too. I have ruthlessly extracted that word from its natural placement to suggest that while  Hayward and his ilk may or may not be monsters, the consequences of their actions in the Gulf are monstrous.)

In the discussion about nanotechnology and safety I think we need to consider as many perspectives as possible without condemning everyone who represents business interests or being unduly naïve about competing interests. I do encourage you to read Ricket’s critique of the two Safe Chemicals bills as he brings up issues that would never have occurred to me and, I imagine, others who are not directly involved in the production of nanotechnology-enabled products.

Not enough data to assess risk for nanoscreens?

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I’m glad to see that the Friends of the Earth (FOE) civil society group (or nongovernmental agency) have responded to Andrew Maynard’s challenge. As I thought, the FOE has stated that it is impossible to assess the risk that nanoscreens (specifically the sunscreens’ titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide nanoparticles) present as there is not enough data.

The statement (posted in a June 15, 2010 posting on the 2020 Science blog) was made in response to a challenge by Dr. Andrew Maynard (blog owner) first issued in his June 8, 2010 posting (Friends of the Earth come down hard on nanotechnology – are they right?) and further detailed in another June 8, 2010 posting (Just how risky could nanoparticles in sunscreens be?).

FOE goes on to detail some of the problems associated with providing an answer (you can view the full statement in the first link provided in the second paragraph),

Andrew – thanks for the invitation to perform some complex risk assessment using several poorly understood variables. However we do have to point out that the world’s best minds don’t yet have enough information even to design reliable nanomaterial risk assessment processes, let alone to come up with a single ‘worst case scenario’ figure for long term health impacts of using nano-sunscreens.

The huge knowledge gaps plaguing nanomaterials toxicity and exposure assessment (along with preliminary studies suggesting the potential for serious harm) are key reasons for calls by Friends of the Earth Australia and United States for a precautionary approach to management of nanotoxicity risks.

I don’t think the sarcasm with which the authors (Georgia Miller and Ian Illuminato) open their statement is absolutely necessary but their main point is well made as it opens the door to a discussion about one’s perspective on and philosophy towards risk.

The impact that engineered nanoparticles of any kind could have on life is poorly understood and research is urgently needed. The research that has been undertaken on titanium dioxide and zinc oxide nanoparticles does suggest some potentially serious problems could occur. I want to emphasize my phrasing here ‘could occur’ because to date we have no evidence that anyone using nanoscreens has had any health issues as a consequence of their use. Still, the laboratory research is concerning. So, how are we as a society and as individuals going to approach the risk?

The school of thought which supports the FOE’s application of the precautionary principle seems to be that any element of risk should curtail use until the engineered nanoparticles have been extensively tested and then declared safe. I’m not clear how testing under those conditions could ever proceed to human clinical trials. It would not be possible to test every single variable or, more importantly, every combination of variables which could result in a risk. The net result would be: no nanoscreens while people use possibly inferior to nanosunscreen products to protect themselves from the sun’s effects.

I’ve commented about the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and their assessment of nanosunscreens previously (here). Last year (2009), they, reluctantly, after an extensive meta analysis of the available research recommended nanosunscreens on the basis that there was no compelling data to suggest undue risks. The EWG has not adjusted its stance since then and, this year, are warning against sunscreens that use Vitamin A and oxybenzone as well as sunscreens that are applied in spray or powder forms.

In most circumstances I imagine that the FOE and the EWG would be natural allies as both NGOs are focused on health and safety issues. So it’s strange that the FOE did not mention the EWG report (as I noted here) in the FOE’s own 2009 report on sunscreens although they did cite research from Japan that supports the FOE’s position but was released after the EWG’s 2009 recommendations.

In the instance of nanosunscreens, there appears to be a sharp division of opinion between the two groups. I think this points to a major philosophical difference in their approaches to risk. Faced with identical (or almost so) data sets, the FOE wants to halt use until these nanoparticles are declared safe while the EWG suggests that these nanosunscreens might be safer than conventional products currently in the marketplace and recommends their use.

The approach as exemplified by the FOE is to insist on extensive testing and guarantees as to how and when nanotechnology-enabled products are safe before they ever get near the marketplace. This is the precautionary principle being applied. Given the complex environment we all navigate on a daily basis, I can certainly understand the stance. However, I am pragmatic by nature and since testing every single possible variable and combination of variables is impossible I am more inclined to consider the data that we currently have available as inconclusive. I have read some (not all) of the materials and I’ve noticed that the scientists’ conclusions are always expressed in very measured tones.

To illustrate my point about the “measured tones”, I’ve excerpted this from FOE’s response to Andrew’s challenge in the June 15, 2010 posting on 2020 Science,

FOE: Transparent micron-particle sized zinc oxide sunscreens are commercially available; a recent article suggests most titanium dioxide nano-sunscreens on the market could be doing more harm than good. No-one need use nanoparticles in order to produce a cosmetically and functionally acceptable sunscreen.

The article is in Nature Nanotechnology (behind a paywall) and it’s the published version of Dr. Amanda Barnard’s work using a computer simulation to establish potential toxicity. From the Nature Nanotechnology article,

… using this technique [computer simulation] it is possible to draw direct comparisons between the SPF, transparency and potential toxicity of nanoparticles used in sunscreens, based on fundamental nanoscale properties, and optimize these parameters numerically. In general, optimization decisions of this type are usually based on product testing under expected usage conditions, but the results presented here do complement traditional product and consumer testing activities, and can also be applied to other thermal or chemical conditions, or applied to any other material where a trade-off is necessary when balancing efficacy, aesthetics and an undesirable side effect. [emphases mine]

I gather Dr. Barnard is viewing the use of a computer simulation in research as a complement and not as a replacement for or an equivalent to traditional testing. In an interview with Anna Salleh for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Science Online website,

Dr Barnard found that the size and concentrations of nanoparticles that gave the best transparency and sun protection also gave the highest potential for production of free radicals.

“Where we have the highest sun-protection factor – and it’s pretty – it [the sunscreen] is also toxic, potentially,” she said.

“Ultimately we have to trade off. We can’t have our cake and eat it too.”

I’m not sure what sort of trade-off Dr. Barnard might be suggesting but it’s clear that she’s aware that the use of nanotechnology-enabled products such as nanosunscreens is not a simplistic ‘good (conventional sunscreens) vs. bad (nanosunscreens)’ situation.

Dexter Johnson makes note of the FOE’s response to Andrew’s challenge in his essay (Daring to Challenge NGOs on Nanotech Risk) on the Nanoclast blog with some pithy and thought-provoking comments.

I do have one major point of difference with Dexter, I find the FOE’s suggestion that the companies selling the nanosunscreen products should provide their testing information to be a good idea although I first saw it in a comment from Hilary Sutcliffe in the comments section of one of Andrew’s June 8, 2010 postings.

I do believe that NGOs are important players in the debate but the tenor of the FOE’s response to Andrew’s challenge makes it a little harder to hold on to that belief. From the June 15, 2010 posting on Andrew’s blog,

Andrew, we respectfully suggest that someone of your expertise and stature could play a more constructive role in these debates – debates which should not be limited to a question of technical risk assessment. [emphasis mine]

I think the challenge was very constructive indeed.

I did comment on this latest sunscreen discussion last week, Part 1 and Part 2 where I discuss the nature of risk, uncertainty and nanosunscreens.

McGill University researchers get closer to making organic nanoelectronics a reality

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You can’t rush out and buy products with organic nanoelectronic components yet but one day you will and you’ll have Dr. Dmitrii Perepichka at McGill University (Montréal, Canada), Dr. Federico Rosei of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique and the members of their international research team to thank for it. From the McGill University news release,

Although they could revolutionize a wide range of high-tech products such as computer displays or solar cells, organic materials do not have the same ordered chemical composition as inorganic materials, preventing scientists from using them to their full potential. But an international team of researchers led by McGill’s Dr. Dmitrii Perepichka and the Institut national de la recherche scientifique’s Dr. Federico Rosei have published research that shows how to solve this decades-old conundrum. The team has effectively discovered a way to order the molecules in the PEDOT, the single most industrially important conducting polymer.

This is an important step forward for anyone who owns a computer or a mobile phone or anything with transistors. In the 1960s a fellow called Gordon Moore (he went on to co-found Intel) made a prediction (from Intel’s Moore’s Law web page),

Intel co-founder Gordon Moore is a visionary. In 1965, his prediction, popularly known as Moore’s Law, states that the number of transistors on a chip will double about every two years. And Intel has kept that pace for nearly 40 years.

We are almost at the physical limits given our current technologies which is why this new type of organic component is important. Perepichka while noting that there’s still a considerable amount of work to be done before being able to create organic nanoelectronic components speculates about future uses,

By using molecular materials instead of silicon semiconductor, we could one day build transistors that are ten times smaller than what currently exists.” The chips would in fact be only one molecule thick.

The groundbreaking technique used to achieve this capability,

… sounds deceptively simple. The team used an inorganic material – a crystal of copper – as a template. When molecules are dropped onto the crystal, the crystal provokes a chemical reaction and creates a conducting polymer. By using a scanning probe microscope that enabled them to see surfaces with atomic resolution, the researchers discovered that the polymers had imitated the order of the crystal surface. The team is currently only able to produce the reaction in one dimension, i.e. to make a string or line of molecules. The next step will be to add a second dimension in order to make continuous sheets (“organic graphite”) or electronic circuits.

Here are images of the polymer with its chemical composition (at the left),

This image shows the polymers that were created at a resolution of 5 nanometres (the average strand of human hair is 80,000 nanometres wide) Source: Dept. of Chemistry, McGill University

I was interested to note that part of the funding for this project comes from the US Air Force since they also recently funded work on integrating memristors in electronic components (my blog posting here). Here’s my last excerpt from the news release details about the researchers’ affiliations, where the study was published, and the funding sources for the work,

Perepichka is affiliated with McGill University’s department of chemistry and Rosei is affiliated with Institut national de la recherche scientifique – Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Center, a member of the Université du Québec network. Their research was published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development of the USA, the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society, the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la nature et les technologies, and the Ministère du Développement économique, de l’Innovation et de l’Exportation of Quebec.

Memristor tidbit from an unexpected source

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The US Air Force has funded research to enable memristors to be integrated into CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) devices. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Dr. Wei Wang, CNSE [College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering] Assistant Professor and Senior Research Scientist of Nanoscale Engineering, and Dr. Nathaniel Cady, CNSE  Assistant Professor of Nanobioscience, received $460,000 in funding from the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (“AFRL”) to enable integration of CMOS devices with memristors – including the development of novel prototypes – to support a new computing paradigm. Early research shows significant promise for the development of smaller nanoelectronic computer architectures that generate new and efficient ways to perform computational tasks while consuming less power.

The work is being performed at the University of Albany where the CNSE resides. In total, they received over $2M in US federal funding for various nanotechnology research projects.

After the discussion about memristors (see below) a few months back, I’m tickled to see this development.

Articles listed with the most recent article first:

Science in the British election and CASE; memristor and artificial intelligence; The Secret in Their Eyes, an allegory for post-Junta Argentina?

Measuring professional and national scientific achievements; Canadian science policy conferences

New approaches for emerging technologies; memristor comments by Dr. Leon Chua; more about I’m a scientist

Memristors and nuances in a classification tug-of-war; NRC of Canada insights; rapping scientists

Interview about memristors with Forrest H Bennett III

The memristor rises; commercialization and academic research in the US; carbon nanotubes could be made safer than we thought

More on memristors and a little bit on food packaging and nano

Canada’s nano article numbers (part 2) plus memristor and L’Oreal updates

Memristors and green energy

California boycott of Nature journals?

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It seems the California Digital Library (CDL) which manages subscriptions for the University of  California has been getting a deal on its Nature journal subscriptions and now the publisher, Nature Publishing Group (NPG), has raised their subscription price by approximately 400 percent. Predictably the librarians are protesting the rate hike. Less predictably, they are calling for a boycott.

The Pasco Phronesis blog notes,

The negotiations continue via press releases. Independent of the claims both sides are making, this fight brings out the point that journal subscription rates have continually increased at rates that challenge many universities to keep up. NPG is not the only company charging high rates, it’s just that the long-standing agreement with the CDL has become no longer sustainable for NPG. Given the continuing budget problems California faces, it seems quite likely that the CDL may no longer find NPG subscriptions sustainable.

The article by Jennifer Howard for the Chronicle of Higher Education offers some details about the proposed boycott. In addition to canceling subscriptions,

The voluntary boycott would “strongly encourage” researchers not to contribute papers to those journals or review manuscripts for them. It would urge them to resign from Nature’s editorial boards and to encourage similar “sympathy actions” among colleagues outside the University of California system.

The boycott’s impact on faculty is not something that immediately occurred to me but Dr. Free-Ride at Adventures in Ethics and Science notes,

One bullet point that I think ought to be included above — something that I hope UC faculty and administrators will consider seriously — is that hiring, retention, tenure, and promotion decisions within the UC system should not unfairly penalize those who have opted to publish their scholarly work elsewhere, including in peer-reviewed journals that may not currently have the impact factor (or whatever other metric that evaluators lean on so as not to have to evaluate the quality of scholarly output themselves) that the NPG journals do. Otherwise, there’s a serious career incentive for faculty to knuckle under to NPG rather than honoring the boycott.

There is both support and precedent for such a boycott according to Howard’s article,

Keith Yamamoto is a professor of molecular biology and executive vice dean of the School of Medicine at UC-San Francisco. He stands ready to help organize a boycott, if necessary, a tactic he and other researchers used successfully in 2003 when another big commercial publisher, Elsevier, bought Cell Press and tried to raise its journal prices.

After the letter went out on Tuesday, Mr. Yamamoto received an “overwhelmingly positive” response from other university researchers. He said he’s confident that there will be broad support for a boycott among the faculty if the Nature Group doesn’t negotiate, even if it means some hardships for individual researchers.

“There’s a strong feeling that this is an irresponsible action on the part of NPG,” he told The Chronicle. That feeling is fueled by what he called “a broad awareness in the scientific community that the world is changing rather rapidly with respect to scholarly publication.”

Although researchers still have “a very strong tie to traditional journals” like Nature, he said, scientific publishing has evolved in the seven years since the Elsevier boycott. “In many ways it doesn’t matter where the work’s published, because scientists will be able to find it,” Mr. Yamamoto said.

I feel sympathy for both sides as neither side is doing well economically these days. I do have to wonder at the decision to quadruple the subscription rates overnight as it smacks of a negotiating tactic in a situation where the CDL had come to expect a significantly lowered subscription rate. With this tactic there’s the potential for a perceived win-win situation. The CDL will triumphantly negotiate a lower subscription rate and the publisher will get the increase they wanted in the first place. That’s my theory.

Plug the BP oil spill (Gulf of Mexico) in a 2nd Life simulation

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I just got a comment from Fire Centaur (as the person is known in 2nd Life) about a 3D simulation of the BP oil spill.Fire created the simulation as both an educational tool and a means of grappling with the sense of helplessness that a great many of us are feeling as we watch oil pump into the Gulf of Mexico for months now. From Fire’s blog posting in response to a comment that the simulation is in ‘bad taste’,

Hi Trella,

I’m Fire Centaur in SL – I created the Oil Spill simulation on my island English Village.

I hear what you are saying, and value your opinion.

The reason I made the simulation, and the reason why I have been SL from the beginning, is because I see “gaming platforms” as a viable delivery platform for education.

In a way, SL is quite enabling, because it allows ‘us’ to enter a gamers world… – where we are able to create immersive content – and connect – through simulations – with gamers and others who are interested in virtual worlds.

Most of the people I have met in SL, are engaged in higher education. (University professors etc)

I think gaming as a delivery platform for education certainly should never replace real life education – but it certainly has its merits.

After living in Korea for 5 years, seeing how many youth play games, I think there can be something said for using gaming to “enter” a users world…

In some small way, I was hoping that my experience in programming simulations and manipulating LSL code, and in building this simulation, could somehow help to contribute to the cause – and give users something they could engage with, and perhaps even reduce the disassociation attached with just reading the news…

Creating a gaming simulation where users attempt to plug a flowing oil pipe enables highly immersive user engagement (for those who try the simulation) and I’m hoping that it might even cause some people to feel that they too could be a part of a solution…

It’s very easy to feel helpless when these things happen, and since in some cases where we dont see the immediate effects of this tragedy, we can easily feel disassociated from the problem altogether.

By getting people into a game – simulating them being at the bottom of the ocean… repairing a pipe – helps them to be being part of a solution, through engagement.

I am hoping, this might reduce this feeling of helplessness… or at the very least, encourage discussion of the tragedy.

If you try the game, it would take you about 2 minutes to plug the pipe I created that is spewing oil…

That’s two valuable minutes of a users time.

From a webmasters point of view – 2 minutes is quite a lengthy time to immersively capture your audiences attention…

If I can do that – and have them focussed on important issues like the BP Spill… heck – I think thats pretty good!

Thanks for taking the time to check it out.

Anyhow, if anyone else would like to try the simulation, or use it as a space for a discussion, I most certainly welcome you to the environment…

You can gain access and instructions by going here.

I haven’t been to the BP oil spill in 2nd Life yet but I’m looking forward to it. Thank you, Fire Centaur.

Silver nanoparticles and Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment

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According to the news item on Nanowerk, Germany’s Federal Institute of Risk Assessment (BIR) has advised German manufacturers against adding silver nanoparticles to their products. From the news item,

The manufacturers of consumer products have made use of the antimicrobial properties of silver ions for some time now. Recently, silver particles in the nanorange have likewise been used. For instance, the surfaces in fridges coated with nanosilver are intended to inhibit the growth of germs and nanosilver aims to prevent odour formation in sports socks. It is not possible at the present time to determine in a definitive manner whether nanosilver constitutes a health risk for consumers. “Until we are in a position to reliably rule out potential health risks, we recommend that manufacturers refrain from using nanosilver in consumer products”, says BfR President Professor Dr. Andreas Hensel.

I’m not sure what weight this recommendation has but this is a government agency as per the news item,

The Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a scientific institution within the remit of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection (BMELV). It advises the federal government and federal Länder on all aspects of food, chemical and product safety. BfR undertakes research of its own on topics that are closely related to its assessment tasks.

The agency has published a report/opinion and while there is an English-language version of the website I was not able to locate an English-language version of the report/opinion.