From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Mon Aug 19 2002 - 01:40:12 MDT
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New York Times article 8/19/2002
<<NEW ECONOMY
By BARNABY J. FEDER
The great Gray Goo debate is beginning to matter.
The controversy involves the potential perils of making molecular-size
objects and devices, a field known as nanotechnology.
>From its earliest days, nanotechnology has had its fear-mongers, warning of
novel and terrifying risks.
Who could be sure how products so small that they would be invisible to the
human eye would behave, particularly when the nanoworld's basic design
elements — atoms and small molecules — are governed by the surreal laws of
quantum mechanics rather than the more familiar Newtonian physics of large
objects?
The ultimate nightmare was the so-called Gray Goo catastrophe, in which
self-replicating microscopic robots the size of bacteria fill the world and
wipe out humanity.
Until recently, though, the debate was restricted to the relatively small
community of nanotechnology researchers and experts. The risks they discussed
often seemed cartoony or vague compared with the dazzling breakthroughs they
projected in fields like medicine, supercomputing, energy and environmental
cleanup.
Now, though, nanotechnology is toddling into commercialization, with
nanoscale particles being embedded in consumer products like sunscreens,
stain-resistant khakis and wound dressings.
A number of companies are racing to scale up production of carbon nanotubes —
molecule-size cylinders of carbon with unusual electrical, thermal and
structural properties.
For the first time, nanotechnology is encountering the kind of real-world
headwinds that have impeded biotechnology...>>
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