Neither Gods Nor Goo

Avoiding both utopian and apocalyptic forecasts for nanotechnology

Todd Seavey from the March 2008 issue

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Kelvin Nanotechnologies has been involved in research on so-called “labs on a pill” and “labs on a chip,” tiny chemical diagnostic and medicine-delivery devices within the body that eliminate such macroscopic clumsiness as time-release capsules, lengthy probes, and the need for many medicines to travel through the entire bloodstream. They employ precise fits between target cells and injected substances that Casey describes as “molecular Lego.” The ability to sort substances at the molecular level has applications from water flow in nine-inch pipes to fiber-optic cables. It also will likely mean the ability to regrow injured tendons along grooves created by nanomaterial within the body that melt away after use.

At the University of St. Andrews, the scientists of the Biophotonics Programme, aided by the fact that sufficiently small particles can be manipulated by light, are working with lasers as optical tweezers—the “ultimate sterile instrument,” one researcher calls them. Such instruments could decrease the odds of hospital infections by moving cells and microscopic dollops of medicine without the need for contact between flesh and solid instruments. Sufficiently fine-tuned tweezing, of a sort impossible with larger tools made from metal, may make it possible to deactivate tumors by identifying and destroying their stem cells. St. Andrews physicist Kishan Dholakia has high hopes for using molecular sorting and lasers to make more diagnoses at the chemical level rather than through patient observation.

Rather than looking at macroscopic phenomena, doctors of the future may be able to tag, track, and observe the cellular-level damage that is causing problems, whether it’s a perforated spleen or a misfiring nerve in the lower back. If that sounds too distant and speculative, St. Andrews researchers are already working with light-activated creams that speed wound healing and are less likely to leave scars than conventional bandages and stitches.

Defense of Mechanisms
Wonderful as all this is, it is gradual and piecemeal—not as frightening, terrible, or transformative as either the sci-fi optimists or the doom­saying activists would have it. And that makes it all the more ridiculous that such valuable work might be impeded by regulations or protests motivated by mostly imaginary or far-off scenarios. One reason the Scots are so optimistic about their potential to be big players in nanotech is their belief that wariness about cloning and stem cell research in the U.S. and a general aversion to biotechnology in continental Europe do not bode well for nanotech research in those places.

Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, along with various European green groups, have called for a moratorium on nanotech until it can be proven safe. At their urging, the European Commission last year began to consider whether nanotech fits under existing E.U. safety regulations or must be subjected to special reviews and controls. This sort of legal limbo tends to inhibit investment.

In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regards nanotech as a “combination product” that bridges the divide between pharmaceuticals, biological agents, and medical devices. That means nanotech must be proven safe and effective before approval and may risk being shuttled between different offices, but is not as yet presumed especially dangerous. The FDA concedes it has no regulatory authority over nondrug, nonfood products such as nanotech-incorporating cosmetics, a frequent target of unscientific health scares. It would not be surprising if the FDA eventually invites discussion of whether to expand its regulatory authority to cover nanotech uses currently outside its bailiwick or cedes such regulatory responsibility to other agencies. In 2006 the Berkeley City Council, often in the vanguard of green regulations, became the first U.S. locality to explicitly require tracking of production processes involving nanoparticles.

While nanotech has not yet attracted as much ire as biotech, nanotech researchers are worried by the negative tone of much of the press coverage biotech receives. Shortly before my visit to Scotland, the Roslin Research Institute—a source of Midlothian pride 11 years ago when it unveiled the cloned sheep Dolly—declined to participate in a BBC special about biotech because it was clear the show would take a “Frankenstein unleashed” approach, according to Harry Griffin, the institute’s former science director and CEO. I saw an ad for the broadcast, an episode of the BBC series Animal Farm, while I was in Scotland. In the sort of overt appeal to ignorance that has become the norm in media coverage of biotechnology, it suggested that what viewers don’t know about high-tech animal husbandry should be cause for alarm.

Among those making a conscious effort to stave off similar paranoia about nanotech are Richard Moore and Ottilia Saxl of the Institute of Nanotechnology in Stirling. Moore laments green activists’ “tendency to consider any of the risks and not the benefits.” He likens the recklessness of being overcautious about nanotechnology to regulators’ longtime resistance to portable defibrillators, once feared because of their potential misuse in inexpert hands but now so valued in the U.K. that they are routinely carried on garbage trucks and kept in other widespread places to make their rapid deployment possible. “There’s no medical device that’s free of risk,” he notes.

Suppose “you’ve got a disseminated brain tumor, and you’re offered nanoparticles or you’ve got three weeks to live,” says Saxl. “If you can actually minutely target these nanoparticles at the tumor, what a wonderful thing.” She has helped organize awareness-raising conferences on “bioinspired nanotechnologies” and nanotech’s environmental benefits (such as radically more efficient oil spill cleanups) because the sense that nanotech is “unnatural” could make it the next target of green or Luddite revulsion. “Lipids and other natural substances can be called nanoparticles,” she notes, “but companies didn’t want to call their work nanotechnology.”

Moore adds that people tend to assume that “natural” things are safe and that the products of industry are automatically a cause for concern. “We’re talking about manmade nanoparticles,” he says, “but we’ve had natural nanoparticles for centuries”—from volcanoes and other natural sources, spewed far and wide—with little concern except among those directly in the blast zone.

No Pants, No Implants
In the U.S., despite our flirtation with paranoia about bio­tech and our routine panics over pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals, our resilient gee-whiz attitude toward machines may yet make our country a haven for unbounded nanotech. But we will have to be watchful of those who seek to smother it as a potential monster long before it has had a chance to yield anything remotely resembling the dreams of the optimists or the nightmares of the detractors.

Given people’s instinctive unease about strange things entering their bodies, we may be better off if the American public becomes enamored of relatively trivial nanotech applications, such as the now-omnipresent stain-resistant pants, before taking much notice of the far more beneficial medical uses. Biotech endures in the U.S. largely because people are accustomed to seeing it used in corn, soybeans, wheat, and other staples of the food supply before opponents had really spread their message. Similarly, we may find that a nation long accustomed to unnaturally clean pants is more receptive to nano-based treatments for cancer and Parkinson’s.

Today’s researchers can only dream of someday possessing the technology to make self-construction by nanobots more efficient than a macroscopic process for making nanobots. Only then could they begin to dream of making the self-construction process propagate itself so rapidly that it constituted a widening menace. Worrying at this stage about the theoretical potential for nanotech to destroy the world—or to transform us into shape-shifting gods—is a bit like worrying that if we engage in laser research we might someday create a laser weapon so powerful that it could destroy the entire planet. There’s a long way between here and there, and those distant prospects should not cause us to hobble people taking tiny steps in far more benign directions.

Todd Seavey edits HealthFactsAndFears.com for the American Council on Science and Health and blogs at ToddSeavey.com.

Comments

|2.27.08 @ 12:41PM|#

One of those famous Scots was the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell.

I present the (IMHO) top six physicists of all time. In no particular order -

Isaac Newton (England)
Maxwell Planck (Germany)
Albert Einstein (Germany)
James Clerk Maxwell (Scotland)
Ernest Rutherford (New Zealand)
Galileo Galilei (Italy)

You may have your own favorites.

The Wine Commonsewer|2.27.08 @ 1:00PM|#

The Frankenpants gag that whats-his-name drew for the cover was great.

|2.27.08 @ 1:12PM|#

Hey TWC! You finally fixed that comma in your embedded URL. Thanks!

|2.27.08 @ 1:21PM|#

Excellent piece. I figure the folks at Scottish Enterprise must eagerly anticipate going to work in the morning. As a rational environmentalist, I think it would be a crime against the planet to choke off this research with burdensome regulations based on luddite nightmares. Which leads to -

Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, along with various European green groups, have called for a moratorium on nanotech until it can be proven safe.

How are you to "prove it safe" (impossible in any case) with a moratorium on research? Oh, that's right, you can't even try. Has there been any techological advance in human history that the Friends of the Earth/Greenpeace, scared of shadows mindset, would not have opposed? Trot out any of the technological/scientific advances throughout mankind's history, and I'll give you a Greenpeace, nervous nellie, reason that we should have prohibited it.

Environmental extremists, like all other extremists, do more harm than good for the cause. If that blind pig Greenpeace ever finds an acorn, I won't read the press release. After a few thousand pieces of unmitigated crap, why would I bother?

stuartl|2.27.08 @ 2:02PM|#

Both our hopes and fears regarding nanotechnology have been extreme from the beginning, if we take as the beginning K. Eric Drexler's 1986 book Engines of Creation.

Normally this is considered the beginning of nanotech.

Richard Feynman (United States)
Niels Bohr (Denmark)

|2.27.08 @ 2:14PM|#

as an engineer i find this stuff fascinating.

i probably have more favorite mathematicians than i do favorite physicists, but einstein and newton must be in all physics top 5's. maxwell's in mine.

cbmclean|2.27.08 @ 2:20PM|#

The author of this article claims that the "divine" aspects of nanotechnology are being overplayed because the dreams are so far ahead of current technology. She even mentions Kurzweil's "The Singularity is Near" and appears to implicitly criticize it as overly ambitious. In doing so, I think that she is completely missing one of the main points of the book: namely that technological progress is not linear, but exponential. Kurzweil's ideas seem like pipe dreams because at current rates of technological progress, they will take centuries to realize. Kurzweil's point was that technology won't be advancing at anything like its current rate in the next few deacdes. It will be vastly faster. I think I remember him estimating that the technological progress in the 21st century will be equivalent to some 20,000 years of progress at the year 2000 rate.
Indeed, I have doubts about Kurzweil's hypothesis, but mainly because of the fear that humanity will either run out of energy, or destroy itself before we make the leap to post-humanity. But I think the author is falling into the same fallicy of linear thinking that most other people fall into.

|2.27.08 @ 2:28PM|#

exponential thinking could be as fallacious as linear thinking. both are 'extrapolative', if that's a word, of current trends without adequately considering future changes in circumstance. (e.g., moore's law has hit atomic limits as foreseen.) kurzweil's ideas are visionary, but i think his timescale's off. besides, the author's main point in bringing that up, which i think is correct, is that focusing public policy discussions excessively on those far-reaching aspects of nanotechnology's possibilities is like putting the cart before the horse.

also, the author's name is Todd Seavey, so it is probably a he rather than a she.

|2.27.08 @ 3:17PM|#

I don't buy most of Kurtweil, and certainly not his timescale -- but stuff IS moving fast.

And the age of molecular machines is coming -- because it turns out, if nothing else, that the very small can do wonders. (Think about the fact that space elevators went from 'Ha! Right! to 'Wait a second...we actually have a material that can do that, if we can grow the tubes a bit longer' in less than a decade.)

I don't expect flying clouds of semi-sentient nanobots maintaining my body, but it's still going to change the world.

And it's possibly quite dangerous -- destruction is always easier than creation. But hell, someone's going to do it, so you might as well be good at it to guard against the invietable misuse. (I don't think grey goo -- I think targetted machines that transmit like viruses, and chew apart critical proteins and reproduce inside human cells. A nastier, more virulent bioweapon, basically).

Between nanotechnology and synthetic biology, life is gettering damn interesting. I figure my odds of reaching 120 get better every year. :)

|2.27.08 @ 3:22PM|#

cmclean,
she is free to "completely miss one of the main points of the book" because the article was not about the book. It wasn't an article about the singularity.

|2.27.08 @ 3:23PM|#

just saw sv's comment
*he/she

|2.27.08 @ 3:30PM|#

"I think the author is falling into the same fallicy of linear thinking that most other people fall into."

your comment is completely irrelevant. The point of the article was that we shouldn't fear nanotech simply because of the sci-fi worst-case scenarios that tend to be completely out of line with the practical applications of the new technology.

|2.27.08 @ 5:55PM|#

"your comment is completely irrelevant. The point of the article was that we shouldn't fear nanotech simply because of the sci-fi worst-case scenarios that tend to be completely out of line with the practical applications of the new technology."

I don't think that it is completely irrelevant. If you are willing to take kurzweil's timeframes seriously, it seems reasonable to ask questions and maybe even work for a moratorium on nanotech.

|2.27.08 @ 6:38PM|#

J sub D, nice to see Rutherford on there, but where's the love for the great and massively underrated Josiah Willard Gibbs?

Dude developed modern thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, along with a bunch of other things (check out his thoughts on mixing). I am so in awe of that man.

|2.27.08 @ 6:42PM|#

Why would anyone take Kurzweil's "nanobot" and artificial intelligence timeline claims seriously? All the guys that make up this rubbish are not the guys in the clean rooms and rapid prototyping facilities actually developing things. They're not the poor bastards who have to develop in LabView. i.e. They really don't know what they're talking about when it comes to all this "nanobot" nonsense.

|2.27.08 @ 7:48PM|#

Karl,
did you rtfa? It had absolutely nothing to do with kurzweil's timeframes. the author only mentioned kurzwiel in reference to ultra sci-fi horror stories about where technology might take us.
how in the world can you consider a moratorium on nanotech research 'reasonable'?

|2.27.08 @ 9:03PM|#

As someone who's working in nanotech (and the very interesting intersection between nanotechnology and law), this was a pretty good article.

Those who want to "put a moratorium on research in nanotechnology" are going to have a hell of a time. How are they going to define it? Research into small particles? Oops, guess they just forbade chemistry. And a lot of biology. And a lot of electrical engineering. Guess material science has to get squelched as well....

And of course, any country that decides to ignore Greenpeace et. al. is going to make out like bandits.

Global capitalism. Gotta love it.

cbmclean|2.27.08 @ 9:59PM|#

sv,

You got me on the gender issue. I pride myself on clear thinking, but I don't even remember seeing a female name onthe by line. I have no idea what made me think it was a woman. Maybe someone could do some psychoanalysis on pervasive subconscious sexism.
Anyway, I would agree that exponential thinking is just extrapolation. But, Kurzweil presents quite a bit of evidence that human technological progress is not linear, but exponential.

some sense|2.28.08 @ 12:58PM|#

I now know what is wrong with Lou Dobbs. He has tiny robots in his pants, and that is making him grumpy.

Ramesh Raghuanshi|3.10.08 @ 3:30AM|#

From ancient time doomsday futurists are fearing common man, that is their bread and butter.
Those who have bit of thinking faculty they donot fear, they know well that any advance technology always benifited to mankind,only because how to use any technology is depend on man, he will definately mould even piosonious technology on his favour.So I wllcome nano technology wholeheartly

|3.11.08 @ 4:54AM|#

Both hype and fear surrounding nanotechnology are based on ignorance, stupidity (intellectual limitations), foolishness (poor judgment), credulity and paranoia. There is nothing new about handling matter on this (10 to the -9 meter)scale: in fact chemistry operates on a scale smaller by one order of magnitude. If Greenpeace at al had any credibility to lose, their statement about "a moratorium on nanotechnology" wpould do it.

|3.11.08 @ 12:46PM|#

"Drexler, an engineer, described nanotech as the ultimate fulfillment of humanity's dynamic, self-transforming tendencies: the ability to create whatever we want, whenever we want it, combined with an imperative to take this godlike new power to the stars and turn the universe into our playground. Drexler also described the dark twin of this vision: the "gray goo" scenario."

Isn't the supposedly "light" twin merely a wolf's in sheep clothing. The ability to create everything when and whenever we want would leave the galaxy void of value. If scarcity conveys value then non-scarcity would inversely devalue everything. Otherwise stated, man has infinite value for goods, yet all goods have a diminishing marginal rate of utility. Each person, being the god of his/her own universe, would rule over a "empire of dirt". Despair would be the logical outcome, assuming we live in purely materialistic universe.