You don’t expect to read about nanotechnology in a fashion magazine but there it was — in an article on sunscreens by Sarah Nicole Prickett. (The article titled, ‘Overprotected‘ can be found in the Summer 09 issue of a Canadian magazine called ‘Fashion‘.) The piece highlighted for me some of the constraints that writers encounter when writing about science issues in articles that are not destined for popular science magazines and the concerns that scientists have with how their work is represented in popular media.

I enjoyed the article but this caught my attention immediatedly,

But there’s another potentially dark side to sunscreen: nanotechnology.

For nanotechnology, you could substitute the words science or chemistry. The word covers  a lot of ground as Victor Jones, consultant and former chair of Nanotech BC, noted in part 2 of his interview here where he described it as an enabling technology.

There are any number of reasons why the writer might have chosen this approach. She’s trying to keep your attention (I’ve done this myself); she doesn’t understand nanotechnology very well (Note: there are competing definitions and narratives which makes it time-consuming to sort things out); she thought the readers would not be interested in a more technically accurate and dull description (well, it’s not a science magazine); she didn’t have the editorial space; etc.

The problem for scientists is that a lot of people get their science information in this casual, informal way and it’s not understood by the general audience and scientists that writers are under a great many constraints when they’re producing their articles (or their tv or movie or game scripts for that matter) and I’ve only named a few possible constraints.

To give the writer credit, she does explain some of the potential issues with nanoparticles clearly. Personally, I would have liked to have seen where she got information from because I don’t know which type of particles she’s talking about.

Coincidentally, I just found a story about nanoparticles and lung problems. The type of particles discussed in the news release are new to me (from Physorg.com),

In a study published online today (Thursday 11 June) in the newly launched Journal of Molecular Cell Biology [1] Chinese researchers discovered that a class of nanoparticles being widely developed in medicine – ployamidoamine dendrimers (PAMAMs) – cause lung damage by triggering a type of programmed cell death known as autophagic cell death. They also showed that using an autophagy inhibitor prevented the cell death and counteracted nanoparticle-induced lung damage in mice.

Back to the article in ‘Fashion‘, she’s right there are a lot of questions about the impact about all these particles potentially entering our cells. The Canadian Council of Academies’ Expert Panel that she refers to in her article produced a report in 2008 and I thought their recommendations were rather tepid (you can see my posting here) but the quote she has from the chair of the committee, Pekka Sinervo, puts a different face on it.

I’m glad a chance to see the article and learn from it. Now, I’m going to be looking for more information about the particles in sunscreens and more cautious about what I put on my skin.

As for scientists getting their message out, maybe they could have a ‘Sexy Scientists’ article in a poular magazine and more accurate information about nanotechnology and other emerging technologies could be sausaged in somehow. In New York, there’s an annual World Science Festival going on. It looks like they’ve managed to move out of the science museum and into the street.