Today's post comes to you live from the 2006 Nano Science and Technology conference in Boston. I'm here presenting the work of my NanoStudio and taking in the exhibition and paper presentations along with 3,000 other nanophiles.

The scale and variety of offerings reinforce the staggering range of nanotechnology applications. materials suppliers are selling carbon nanotubes, quantum dots and much more from booths, while academics describe their most recent research in packed sessions.

Just to take a cross-section of a few of the co-presenters in my own session, we find Dr. Sunny Iyuke of the School of Process and Materials Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johanesburg, who teaches his students about the social and health issues in nanotechnology by having them actually make carbon nanotubes. The hands-on aspect of the course, says Iyuke, does wonders for the students' understanding of both the materials and their social and health implications.

Dr. Jo Anne Shatkin, principal of The Cadmus Group, a Massachusetts-based environmental and energy consulting firm, presented a model for helping businesses understand and evaluate the risks of nanomaterials they make or use. She told me that most firms simply don't know how to properly evaluate the risks of nanomaterials, even when they invented them.

Tomorrow I'll be prowling the exhibition floor to bring you insights on some of the vendors and their wares.