Nanoparticles: No Small Deal

I, like you undoubtedly, have too many opportunities to link and search and read stuff on the Internet than one can reasonably address in a lifetime, let alone a day or an hour. Today I allowed myself a tiny romp and landed upon The Tyee, a lovely and informative site from British Columbia. In describing the publication, editor David Beers says: "In November of 2003 The Tyee began its swim upstream against the media trends of our day. We're independent and not owned by any big corporation. We're dedicated to publishing lively, informative news and views, not dumbed down fluff. We, like the tyee salmon for which we are named, roam free and go where we wish. . . (snip to end) . . . As noted at the outset, the word tyee is by local current definition a Chinook, Spring or King salmon of thirty pounds or more. But more than a century ago, the original Chinook word carried even more weight. In those days a tyee meant a chief, a king, "anything of superior order" -- even an online magazine. That's something to aim for as we swim against the current."

The article in The Tyee that got my attention is all about nanopaticles. Nanoparticles? you ask. Yup. They're popping up in our socks and sheets and mattresses, bandages, washing machines and teddy bears. You can find a list of products that contain nanoparticles at The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.

So while Jeffrey Sachs goes about the business of searching for solutions to global poverty, others are working hard to figure out how to put nanoparticles in our socks and sheets and perhaps ultimately, our bodies where they can sidle up to the other extraneous pollutants and stray antibiotics that are hanging about. Er. Huh?