Snip from today's NYTimes: "Research will also center on how they move in the environment, the problems they might cause for people, animals and plants, and how these problems could be avoided or mitigated...Little is known about whether substances engineered at the nano scale persist and accumulate in the environment in unusual and potentially harmful ways." Full article here. A summary of the EPA's research strategy here.
Germany's biotech and nuclear power industries have already been stunted by technological fears unique to Germany, Newsweek reports, and its nanotechnology sector may be next. The magazine traces these fears to the country's 1980s green movement, where it:
"defined nature-or what is mythified as such, for there is no wild nature left in densely settled Germany-as 'good,' and viewed technological intrusions with suspicion. These modern Greens harked back to powerful back-to-nature movements that defined science and scientists as 'cold,' corrupted by capitalist masters, and blind to catastrophic risk. You, idealistic Germans in search of their post-World War II identity embraced these themes as a way to prove to themselves that they were 'good' again. That movement's victory in the German culture wars produced powerful taboos, which seem especially strong concerning any tampering with nature on an invisible level-whether it's the climate, the atom, the cell, or (potentially) machines that operate on a nano level."
The article offers a fascinating perspective.
The second reason "selling tomorrows" has become a critical skill is the number and nature of disruptive technologies coming to market in the next decade. Most often seen today in patent applications, start-ups, and university and corporate labs, they’re the inventions that will challenge our cultural, legal, ethical, and economic norms. Some of the more exotic examples include genetic modification, nanotechnology, 3D fabrication, artificial intelligence, and the commercial space industry. The degree of their disruption is surpassed only by the rate at which their adoption can be slowed by regulation, lack of investor confidence, and consumer/voter fears. Given these barriers, disruptive technologies require an even more compelling set of arguments to secure their acceptance.
