This last few days I’ve felt one of the major disadvantages of living on the west coast of North America, my timezone. The big CERN announcement about the Higgs boson happened in the wee hours of my day and the live Q&A (questions and answers) about nanotechnology on the Guardian newspaper website was finished before I heard about it. Thankfully, there’s the internet, which gives us all an opportunity to see what happened (if not participate).

Nanotechnology expert Dr Mark Miodownik (King’s College London) answered questions from 1 pm to 2 pm GMT on Thursday Dec. 15, 2011 at the Guardian’s website.. Here are a few excerpts from the Q&A (I have edited out names, moved the answers so they come directly after the questions, and removed consequent redundancies),

14 December 2011 5:06PM

I don’t worry about self replicating nanobots turning us all into Grey Goo.
I do worry about nanofabricated materials entering the body. For example, from things like sunscreen lotion containing nanoscopic particles.

materialsmark

15 December 2011 12:50PM

I do worry about nanofabricated materials entering the body. For example, from things like sunscreen lotion containing nanoscopic particles

I agree, I think its important we all worry about this aspect of nanotechnology…but I would argue that we should do so in the same context as worrying about all technologies that enter the public domain. Cars kill a lot of people every year, if they were introduced now as a new technology I wonder whether they would make it through? Mine is not an argument for no regulation though, but for a risk benefit analysis.

Here’s the results of a study of the cancer risk of nanoparticles used in sunscreens:

http://www.cancer.org.au/cancersmartlifestyle/SunSmart/nanoparticles_sunscreen.htm

15 December 2011 3:51AM

Hello Dr Mark Miodownik. I am a middle school student and I am having a little trouble coming up with an experiment for my science fair project on nanotechnology. Can you please at least give me one or two ideas on the types of nanotechnology experiments I can conduct? Something on the practical side, such as consumer products or something related to the environment. Thank You.

materialsmark

15 December 2011 12:57PM

A great nanotechnology for experimentation at school is ferrofluids: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=me5Zzm2TXh4

The are cheap to buy (just search online), and extremely fun to experiment with. The physics of whats going on to turn a liquid into gel using a magnetic field has great depth in terms of the concepts that need to be understood. Also thinking of new applications for this type of nanotechnology is not a redundant activity, in my opinion we are just scratching the surface of what can be done with magentically tunable liquids.

15 December 2011 10:54AM

Have there any nanotechnology experiments/studies been conducted in the field of Dentistry or Hygiene?
If so, I would be very interested in knowing about any current research.
Many thanks!

materialsmark

15 December 2011 1:08PM

Have there any nanotechnology experiments/studies been conducted in the field of Dentistry or Hygiene?

There is a lot of potential in using nanotechnology either to restore teeth or make them stronger.

Hydroxyapatite (HA) nanorods have been found that self-assemble, and have similar structure to the enamel rods in teeth. Lots of people seem to be working on creating replacement teeth that are closer to natural teeth – this is called biomimetics. Building up the structure from the ground up, like biological processes do during teeth formation, allows for a great deal of complexity – and nanotechnology lends itself to mimicking this process – since it is concerned with the building blocks, such as nanorods,

15 December 2011 10:58AM

Couldn’t the Guardian have found a better stock photo to illustrate nanotechnology?

materialsmark

15 December 2011 1:13PM

Yes!

I do think the nanotechnology community take a leaf out of NASA’s book and publish more interesting pics of nanotechnology into the public domain – down there it is as easily as beautiful as pictures of galaxies, which after a while get a bit samey if you ask me.

There are more interesting questions and answers at the Guardian.