Nanotech Protests Begin 693
ByteWoopy wrote to mention a Wire.com story discussing the danger of nanotechnology, and the beginning of a backlash against the branch of technology. From the article: "...environmental activists sauntered into the Eddie Bauer store on Michigan Avenue, headed to the broad storefront windows opening out on the Magnificent Mile and proceeded to take off their clothes. The strip show aimed to expose more than skin: Activists hoped to lay bare growing allegations of the toxic dangers of nanotechnology. The demonstrators bore the message in slogans painted on their bodies, proclaiming 'Eddie Bauer hazard' and 'Expose the truth about nanotech,' among other things, in light of the clothing company's embrace of nanotech in its recent line of stain-resistant nanopants."
Love those khakis (Score:5, Informative)
Eddie Bauer makes some nice jeans too. Levis always seem to feel better, but I get a lot more compliments when I'm wearing my Eddie Bauer jeans.
I'm not sure what they are trying to protest. Maybe they can get some mites rolling around naked in the store or something. That ought to give them something "nano" to worry abuot.
Re:Pictures? (Score:4, Informative)
here [wired.com] is one (possibly NSFW)
Re:Love those khakis (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pictures? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Pictures? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:someone enlighten me please (Score:5, Informative)
Uninformed Protesters... Unite! (Score:1, Informative)
Okay, so bascially these people in a huff because manufacturers (Read: not Eddie Bauer) have managed to create extremely fine powders and fibers out of readily available, garden variety stuff. Obviously, these folks are the cream of the crop, Oxford educated types who clearly understand that nanotech is the death of us all. Wow.
Now unless they protesters are similarily endowed, I don't see how being nude is going to help make a point about how nano-anything is bad.
Meanwhile, expect to see people flocking to Eddie Bauer to pick up some of the newly-renamed "Stain-proof Pants", all the while looking for people to suddenly drop-trow by the register.
Re:Isn't this about Teflon, not nanotech (Score:4, Informative)
Dude, teflon is WAY outdated. In fact, Dupont already created genetically engineered bacteria that degrade teflon (hence, it's biodegradable now).
Nanopants use specially designed molecules that make them stain-proof because of their hydrophobic properties.
Re:Dont bother clicking the link... (Score:2, Informative)
First of all, it's spelled "gyp", not "jip."
Secondly, you probably were blissfully unaware of it, but the word has racist origins.
It's short for "gypsy", and the common use implies that all Romany people (14th-Century immigrants to Europe from Northern India) are swindlers and crooks.
It's kind of like how if a bigot is given a low-ball offer on something they are selling, they might use "Jew" as a verb to describe what happened to them.
I'm the last person to tell somebody else what words to use and what not to use, but now that you know better, I wish to suggest that you keep in mind that the Internet is a big place, and there are some folk out there who will have hurt feelings every time you use a slang derivitive of their ethnic background to describe getting ripped off.
Now you know... and knowing is half the battle.
Go Joe!
Re:Don't get excited... (Score:5, Informative)
Please keep this in mind. The most realistic uses for nanotech, many of which are right on the horizon, have absolutely nothing to do with machinery. They take advantage of the fact that A) at the nanoscale, it is more realistic to make structures that are 100% free of impurities, and B) many materials have radically different properties at nanoscale levels.
For example, gold. We all know what normal gold is like. Golden, lustrous, very unreactive. Nanospheres of gold, though? They can be ruby-red in color, and quite reactive.
Or look at carbon nanotubes: they're just rolled up graphite, but simply by varying the number of carbons and how they connect, you can make them incredible electric insulators or better than the best superconductors. They can resist heat incredibly well laterally and channel it along their lengths far better than any other material, or resist it all together. They can have almost ridiculous strengths, compared to brittle graphite. And many, many more odd properties.
This is nanotech. Nanotech isn't little robots swimming around your bloodstream hunting down invaders - at least not in the present. If you mean to talk about those things specifically, say "nanomachines".
Re:Don't get excited... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Teflon is bad (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There are real risks (Score:4, Informative)
DDT is hardly the only chemical available nowadays for killing malaria-spreading mosquitoes nowadays - for example, pyrethoids seem to be completely safe in testing, but more effective than DDT and seem to have the same cost potential.
It is certainly a complex issue, but lets not forget what DDT does, and how long it lasts in the ecosystem. DDT half-life estimates are generally measured in decades. In addition to weakening egg shells to the point of singlehandedly endangering several species and assisting the decline of others, it is genotoxic, very carcinogenic, neurotoxic, damages the liver and kidnes, is teratogenic, and is transferred in breast milk.
If you really want a way to end malaria, by the way, the best thing would be to spent the money instead on recessive lethal "selfish genes" [royalsoc.ac.uk], or other such approaches [biologists.org] to make the malaria-spreading species of mosquitoes go extinct once and for all.
Well, it kills birds... (Score:5, Informative)
Because you're not wearing your kitchenware in the form of tiny teflon fibers.
By the way, Teflon pans are deadly to birds when overheated. A gas is formed which can kill your pet in a matter of minutes. Does it affect humans? Dunno. You can read DuPont's assessment of the danger to birds here [teflon.com].
I'd like to find out exactly what the hazards of Teflon are, especially since we just bought a Teflon-treated couch. The fabric is awesome and inexpensive, but I want an objective assessment of the health risks.
Please don't let your distrust of activitists and love of the acronym FUD obscure the issue. The signal-noise ratio on slashdot is bad enough as it is.
Climate vs Weather (Score:3, Informative)
Saying "how can we predict climate when we can't get the weather forecast right" is about as insightful as saying "but it was COLDER than average today! How the hell can we be experiencing global warming???"
Not that I disagree with you in principle, mind you - we seriously lack data to know just what is going to happen long-term. Just keep in mind that through all the talk about cliamte change, no one is claiming that "it will be 5 degrees hotter on July 21, 2007 in Peoria".
Re:Don't get excited... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Don't get excited... (Score:4, Informative)
"The term Nanotechnology [wikipedia.org] was created by Tokyo Science University professor Norio Taniguchi in 1974 to describe the precision manufacture of materials with nanometre tolerances. "
Drexler further popularized the term to describe very small *manufacturing*. It has since been hijacked by media and scientists alike in order to attract grant money, most notably from the National Nanotechnology Initiative [wikipedia.org], which ignores molecular manufacturing entirely in favor of buzzword-compliant "nanomaterials" research.
Sure, if you accept that popular usage is what defines a term, then Nanotech has supplanted chemistry. That's not where it came from, though.
More info on this confusion, and the Eddie Bauer "nude-ins"
here [r30.net].
Re:Love those khakis (Score:3, Informative)
These protesters are right. Teflon and the like (perfluorochemicals) are accumulating in the food chain.
They are known to cause cancer and supress the immune system.
See this New York Times article:
http://www.health-report.co.uk/teflon_poisoning_d
Times have changed (Score:3, Informative)
CHICAGO, Ill. -- On Saturday, at 1 pm, dozens of concerned citizens joined the public health group THONG outside of the Eddie Bauer flagship store on Michigan Avenue to protest the company's use of untested "nano-fibers" in their "nanotex" clothing line which also boasts the "Teflon" label and are "wrinkle free". THONG is a local Chicago public-interest group that uses nudity to educate people on detrimental threats to human health and the environment.
"We're out here naked so people can SEE THE PROBLEM, nanotech is such a radical and unpredictable new technology, like biotech, that it takes something highly visible, like a naked body, to get people to focus on the need to stop corporations from using humans as guinea pigs for new, untested, and unstable new technologies!" said Kiki Walters of THONG.
"The Royal Society in the UK has issued their own report, recommending regulation to control exposure to nanotechnologies. We believe they have a point to make. We just wanted to make it even more obvious to people."
Eddie Bauer's line of water and stain resistant clothing utilizes nanotechnology, a radically new and untested technology that involves the manipulation of matter at the scale of the nanometer (nm), which is one-billionth of a meter. At this scale, materials behave differently than their larger counterparts, and can possibly be more reactive and toxic, posing unknown risks to human health and the environment. Though nanoparticles are not regulated by any government in the world, many products containing them are already on the market, including food, clothing, cosmetics and sunscreens, without proper safety testing for toxicity, posing risks to the health of consumers and retail workers. Nano-Tex(TM) clothing contains nano-fibers coated with Teflon particles. Nanoparticles have been found to penetrate the blood brain barrier. Inhalation of many types of nanoparticles have been proven to be toxic to animals in lab tests.
"Even the largest re-insurance company in the world, Swiss RE, has stated that they will not insure nanotech at this time. At least this major financial player has openly admitted the potential toxicity of nanoproducts, and that these products present what they call long latent unforeseen claims." said Natalie Eggs, another THONG member.
The real toxic issue here is not nanotech, but the fact that nanotech is being used to further promote the use of substances such as Teflon, which is known to be toxic and dangerous and is already outlawed in many countries. People wearing these outfits with the special nanotech-enabled teflon-based chemicals embedded within them, are exposing themselves to toxic chemicals that are widely recognized around the world as being dangerous!
partially true (Score:3, Informative)
Just a minor clarification.
I think this would count as quite reliable (Score:4, Informative)
So, although they bury this information on their web page, and don't use the word Teflon (AKA PTFE), the information is there on their own web page.
(Btw, I didn't know any of this until I read about it myself in this thread.)
No nanobots? (Score:2, Informative)
You mean, I'm not allowed to say "nanobots"? Well, if you say so. I guess I'll have to go change my resume now.
There's a set of books by Peter Hamilton (The Reality Dysfunction, The Neutronium Alchemist, The Nakid God) which uses the term "nanotechnology" a LOT. But never in the sense of nanobots or gray mater. Good books btw. (Not a great ending though)
Re:Don't get excited... (Score:3, Informative)
Of course there are hazards with small stuff - for instance the problem with asbestos is due to size and shape of the particles (and the fact the stuff is effectively chemically inert, so once it gets in the body it stays there) but these things can be dealt with depending on the nature of the hazard.
It's a pity that nanotech has shifted from the cool stuff Drexter wrote about to absolutely anything below a certain size.
Are you aware that "buckyballs" are "soot"? (Score:4, Informative)
Are you aware that buckyballs are a major component of soot? Along with many of the other carbon nanostructures (many of which are manufactured by sorting them out of soot).
Humans have had a very long time to evolve defenses against these particular carbon compounds that "react strangely" with the body - along with a lot of other combustion products.
One of the dioxins, for instance, is a low-grade carcinogen for humans, instant death for birds (as in they literally fall out of the sky, which is how a chem prof told me at least one accidental release was detected) at similar concentrations, and extremely toxic for just about all other animal life.
I'm sure nanotech will soon come up with something novel and nasty to humans - if it hasn't already. But, odd as they are, buckyballs aren't it. We've been breathing them in quantity since the domestication of fire.