Reporting Risk Assessment of Nanotechnology: A reporter’s

1,32

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guide to sources and research issues

8

stron

6327

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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

2006

rok

Why small particles are a big story

For decades, scientists have anticipated from theory that if they could manipulate individual

molecules, they could engineer materials with electronic, optical, and other properties not observed

in bulk—and open new frontiers in electronics,1 medicine, and consumer products.2 Rather as cells

use a few amino acids to assemble proteins with a wide range of characteristics and functions,

nanotechnology may make it possible to design and engineer materials at the molecular level to

have specific properties. “There is plenty of room at the bottom” is an often-quoted prophetic quip

of the late Caltech physicist Richard A. Feynman in 1959