by Andrew Maynard | May 26, 2009 | Communication, Environment, Nanotechnology, Oversight, Recommended
Back in April, the folks at the PBS station THIRTEEN asked me to answer 13 questions on nanotechnology and the environment for their website feature Green Thirteen. The questions ended up covering most of nanotechnology – what it is, what it’s good for,...
by Andrew Maynard | Mar 26, 2009 | Nanotechnology, Oversight
I’m looking at an electron microscope image of a carbon nanotube – as I cannot show it here, you’ll have to imagine it. It shows a long, straight, multi-walled carbon nanotube, around 100 nanometers wide and 10 micrometers long. There is nothing...
by Andrew Maynard | Mar 26, 2009 | Communication, Nanotechnology, Oversight, Recommended
There are some things they don’t cover in media training, like giving interviews while suffering from stomach flu, talking to reporters thousands of miles away while on a dodgy cell phone connection, or speaking intelligently while your three-year-old niece runs rings...
by Andrew Maynard | Mar 25, 2009 | Communication, Oversight, Policy, Synthetic Biology
A five-minute primer on the promise and challenge of first-generation synthetic biology As an addendum to the previous post on synthetic biology, the following interview from the Wilson Center provides a great overview of what synthetic biology is all about, and the...
by Andrew Maynard | Mar 25, 2009 | Oversight, Policy, Recommended, Synthetic Biology
A new report looks at the challenges of regulating first generation products of synthetic biology. At the J. Craig Venter Institute, scientists are on the verge of creating a living organism from “dead” chemicals, by rebooting a microbe with a new—and completely...
by Andrew Maynard | Mar 2, 2009 | Emerging Technology, Nanotechnology, Oversight
Ten years ago to the month, one of the first research reports detailing the challenges of ensuring the safe use of engineered nanomaterials was delivered to the UK Health and Safety Executive. The report wasn’t for general release, and you’ll be hard pressed to find...
