Seen that? - Nanotechnology environmental, health and safety debate heats up

Filed in archive Best of on May 30, 2010

Nanotechnology environmental, health and safety debate heats up Nanotechbuzz

The debate over safety in nanotechnology is heating up with increasing calls for more spending on studies of environmental, health and safety (EHS) impacts. Several recent studies have also suggested concerns about the health risks of nanomaterials. One found that a nanoparticle commonly used in industry could have a damaging effect on plant life. The report, published in a recent issue of "Toxicology Letters," shows that nanoparticles of alumina slowed [...] Read More


Lack of worker safety data hindering nanotech development Nanotechbuzz

Yesterday I took part in the Industry Forum at the International Conference on Nanotechnology Occupational and Environmental Health & Safety in Cincinnati. The forum focused on risk management in the nanotech industry and featured a wide range of participants from industry, academia, and government, as well as attorneys and insurers. By far the most emphatic theme of the forum was the call for more data on worker safety in the nanotech [...] Read More


UK Raises Nanotech Health Fears Nanotechbuzz

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Martin McCarthy The UK's Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution today published a report entitled Novel Materials in the Environment: The Case of Nanotechnology, which warns of the potential health dangers inherent in nanomaterials. "The Commission's broad conclusion is that the speed of development in the field of nanotechnology 'is beyond the capacity of existing testing and regulatory arrangements to control the potential environmental impacts adequately,'" writes The Independent's [...] Read More


Environmental, Health and Safety Database for Nanotechnology The Biotech Weblog

The International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON) and Rice University's Center for Biological and environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) launched the world's first online database of scientific findings related to the benefits and risks of nanotechnology. The database can be accessed here. [...] Read More


Microbial Biotechnology: The Prescription For Earth's Environmental Health The Biotech Weblog

This entry is submitted by Gloria Gamat, via Creative Reporter.The triple problem that is among the greatest challenges to the environmental health: waste, water, energy. Bruce Rittmann, director of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology in the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University strongly believes that these issues are closely interrelated and that the pollution problems that the world have at present are just energy put in the wrong place and [...] Read More