…As world water resources continue to be depleted, access to clean water and sanitation in developing countries remains a high development priority. Scientists and nanotechnologists are rising to the challenges associated with making water potable. To date, this may be the biggest single application of nanoscience. Not only can nanotechnology can be used to make water remediation more efficient, but ultimately more economically viable.

Read the full article here.

Consumer advocates taking part in a food safety conference in Orlando, Florida, this week said food produced by using nanotechnology is quietly coming onto the market, and they want U.S. authorities to force manufacturers to identify them.

…"I think nanotechnology is the new genetic engineering. People just don't know what's going on, and it's moving so fast," Jane Kolodinsky, a consumer economist at the University of Vermont, said at the conference.

Read the full article here.

The EPA intended its Nanoscale Materials Stewardship Program (NMSP) to provide both EPA and the public with a better understanding of what nanomaterials are being produced, how they’re being used and what their producers know about them.

“EPA not only appears to have received limited information, but worse, EPA is saying almost nothing about it. The information being received appears to be entering a ‘black hole,’”said Richard A. Denison, Ph.D., EDF Senior Scientist. “Limited participation, some company submissions covering only a single nanomaterial, ignorance as to the extent of information being provided, and an almost total lack of public transparency are not a good recipe for a program that was supposed to help restore the public’s trust."

Read the full article here.

"Until you know more about what's going on, plowing ahead with a regulatory requirement might overshoot the mark," said Sam Lipson, the director of environmental health at the Cambridge Public Health Department.

Read the full article here.

On July 28, the Cambridge (Mass.) Public Health Department recommended to the city manager that Cambridge take several steps to gain a better understanding of the nature and extent of nanotechnology-related activities now underway within the city. In addition, news outlets are reporting that a key member of California State Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials is holding meetings around the state in advance of introducing legislation next year that may grant state regulators landmark oversight of nanomaterials.

Read the full article here.

The industry needs large amounts of cerium dioxide (CeO2) to grind computer components and mobile phone camera lenses or the lasers in CD players. Thousands of tons of this substance are used throughout the world. But what happens when this or other nano-substances get into the environment, especially sewage, and thereby enter sewage works? Is the problem solved because nanoparticles largely agglomerate, i.e. clump together?

Read the full article here.

A new study by researchers at North Carolina State University on public attitudes towards nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies shows that educating people about the new technologies results in those people becoming more concerned about the potential impact of the technologies.

Read the full article here.

Now imagine foreign molecules or microbes invading the human body and doctors are able to design custom “weapons” to seek and destroy the invading particles before any harm is done or, if harm is done, repairing the harm.

Twenty years ago that would be science fiction relegated to the doctors on “Star Trek.” Today it is becoming a reality as researchers are working on nanoscale robots to seek and destroy disease particles in the body or repair defective ones. This is ushering in a new branch of medical research called nanomedicine.

Read the full article here.

…A Review of Possible Impacts of Nanotechnology on Australia's Regulatory Framework, was independently conducted by the Centre for Regulatory Studies at Monash University. The review found that whilst there is no immediate need for major changes to the regulatory regime, there are many areas which potentially will need amending.

Read the full article here.

Chemical trade bodies are hoping that an eleventh-hour plea for companies to volunteer information about their nanotechnology products will avert the imposition of potentially restrictive regulation.

But time is running out. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set a deadline of Monday 28 July for US companies to voluntarily hand over details about the nanoparticles they work with. Yet very few companies have participated, leaving the EPA more likely to move towards mandatory regulation, something the industry fears will be bad for business.

Read the full article here.

Who can forget the sci-fi scenarios that scientists so enthusiastically invoked when, a few years ago, they first pitched the potential benefits of nanotechnology—the science and engineering of vanishingly small stuff? Like the submarine in the popular book and movie Fantastic Voyage, microscopic robots hardly bigger than blood cells would someday cruise through our vessels, we were told, monitoring our health and nipping diseases in their very buds.

…But even as the first wave of novel nanoproducts is washing up on the FDA’s shores in the hope of gaining marketing approval, the agency is still trying to figure out whether its age-old criteria for determining the safety and efficacy of new drugs need to be upgraded to deal with this new world of nanotech. After all, nanoscale materials, which are generally between 1 and 100 billionths of a meter in size, or a few ten-thousandths the width of a human hair, are in many cases far more toxic than the same materials in bulk form. Indeed, the blessings of nano are also its curses. Nanoparticles will get into those tumors, for example, but they will also get into places you don’t want them to get. And when they get there, they will do things you don’t want them to do, because particles that size tend to be far more chemically reactive than the same materials in larger form. So FDA officials, along with their counterparts in other agencies dealing with their own versions of the nanotech revolution, need to figure out how to judge these new materials, and pronto.

Read the full article here.

You may never have heard of it, but chances are some of the products you use make use of nanotechnology. These products include particles so small, they might be able to pass through the wall of a cell.

…The question many are asking is whether or not the novel properties of nanomaterials give rise to new exposures and effects, and would that mean that already-approved chemicals should be reassessed for their potential impact as nanomaterials on human health and the environment?

Read the full article here.

Nanotechnology offers great visions of improved, personalized treatment of disease. The hope is that personalized medicine will make it possible to develop and administer for each individual patient the appropriate drug, at the appropriate dose, at the appropriate time. The benefits of this approach are accuracy, efficacy, safety and speed.

Read the full article here.

"The future of nanotechnology is extraordinary," said J. Clarence Davies, a former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official who now serves as a senior adviser to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. "When you start crossing it with synthetic biology and artificial intelligence and so on, science fiction looks very pale in comparison."

Lately, however, the market has not shared in the enthusiasm, at least when it comes to pure-play nanotechnology stocks. In the table below, we show four that have dropped more than 45% from their respective 52-week highs.

Read the full article here.