by Andrew Maynard | May 17, 2008 | Communication, Engagement, Nanotechnology, Oversight
“Nanotechnology” as an overarching concept is great for sweeping statements and sound bites, but falls short when it comes to real-world decision-making. As nanoscale technologies are increasingly used in everything from antimicrobial socks to anti-cancer...
by Andrew Maynard | May 8, 2008 | Communication, Nanotechnology
My worst nightmare—I’m sitting at the back of a small plane (by the bathroom), my knees up round my ears (because someone else with a bigger case got to the overhead storage before me), and a small child screaming its head off two rows down. But unlike a nightmare,...
by Andrew Maynard | Apr 13, 2008 | Communication, Engagement, Nanotechnology
Here’s a small diversion for a slow Sunday afternoon: Take sixty jellybeans and ninety cocktail sticks, and try to construct a model of a buckyball—a carbon-60 molecule. It’s tricky, but not impossible. Constructing a candy buckminster fullerene is one of ten nano...
by Andrew Maynard | Mar 28, 2008 | Communication, Engagement, Nanotechnology, Oversight
The small American town of Sunnyville is a town in crisis. Against a backdrop of job losses that have decimated the local community, citizens are struggling to decide whether to welcome two major nanotech-enabled industries into the town, or whether to reject them...
by Andrew Maynard | Mar 19, 2008 | Civic Science, Communication, Engagement, Nanotechnology
On March 18th, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke died in his home in Sri Lanka at the age of 90. A master developer and assembler of ideas, Clarke will be remembered fondly by many for igniting their enthusiasm for science, and how it might be used to...
by Andrew Maynard | Feb 8, 2008 | Communication, Nanotechnology, Public Perception
What determines your view of nanotechnology—the message, or the messenger? Most of us would like to think it is the message that governs our internal risk-benefit analysis. But research published this week suggests other factors may be at work. Dan Kahan at Yale Law...
