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When a challenge led to little things and a big impact
- It began with a challenge from a great physicist. In 1959, Nobel laureate Richard Feynman gave a lecture titled “There's plenty of room at the bottom,” in which he posed a question: “Computing machines are very large, they fill rooms,”
- More than half a century later, he might not recognise how his ideas have been transformed into a powerful tool kit for scientists, now called nanotechnology.
- In the broadest sense, we're talking a billionth of a metre [a nanometre] and typically technologies that are between 10 and 100nm
- Nanoscience ideas are used in everything from medicine and chemical engineering to space science and telecommunications.
- It's used in the micro-electronics sector but also in medical diagnostics — pregnancy tests use gold nanoparticles.
- With new technology comes new responsibility, and nanoscientists say they are aware of the problems associated with the manipulation of such tiny things.
- Take carbon nanotubes. These tiny tubes are made of carbon atoms and are incredibly strong and conductive but, because of their shape, they could potentially be harmful.
- Some early research on lab mice suggested carbon nanotubes could behave like asbestos particles if inhaled.
- But some argue that too much caution can hinder innovation.
- At the moment politicians and policymakers don't really have a clue how to regulate or what would be applicable norms and standards and ethical values to apply to these issues.
- Fortunately, there is still time for that because the technology is not ready yet.
- Each nanotube carries a pharmaceutical payload on its surface and is able to slip into the body's cells — cancerous or otherwise — much like a nanosized needle. When the nanotubes get to their target, a pulse of microwaves from the outside makes them shed their pharmaceutical loads inside the cells.
- This led to a subsequent project — if you have patients with Parkinson's disease, for example, and you put some of these special nanotubes in, you can use the same energy used in cellphones to stimulate the cells.
- Nanoparticles of varying types are used in sunscreens and car paint, they are used to catalyse chemical reactions in factories and used in every modern electronic device.
- Humans have (without knowing it) used the fruits of nanotechnology for thousands of years, says Dingwall, but the technology to manipulate it has only been available in the past few decades.
