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Nanotechnology Risk Ethics and Law Geoffrey Hunt
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Geoffrey Hunt, Michael Mehta
ISBN(s): 9781844075836, 1844075834
Edition: illustrated edition
File Details: PDF, 2.32 MB
Year: 2008
Language: english
 Contents

List of Figures, Tables and Boxes viii

List of Contributors ix
Preface and Acknowledgements xvi
List of Acronyms and Abbreviations xx

1 Introduction: The Challenge of Nanotechnologies 1

Geoffrey Hunt and Michael D. Mehta

Part One Introducing Nanotechnology

2 Nanotechnology: From ‘Wow’ to ‘Yuck’? 13

Kristen Kulinowski

3 Nanotechnology: From Feynman to Funding 25

K. Eric Drexler

4 Microsystems and Nanoscience for Biomedical

Applications: A View to the Future 35
Linda M. Pilarski, Michael D. Mehta, Timothy Caulfield,
Karan V. I. S. Kaler and Christopher J. Backhouse

5 Nanotechnoscience and Complex Systems: The Case for

Nanology 43
Geoffrey Hunt

Part Two Regional Developments

6 Nanotechnologies and Society in Japan 59

Matsuda Masami, Geoffrey Hunt and Obayashi Masayuki

7 Nanotechnologies and Society in the USA 74

Kirsty Mills

8 Nanotechnologies and Society in Europe 92

Geoffrey Hunt
vi Nanotechnology

9 Nanotechnologies and Society in Canada 105

Linda Goldenberg

Part Three Benefits and Risks

10 From Biotechnology to Nanotechnology: What Can We

Learn from Earlier Technologies? 121
Michael D. Mehta

11 Getting Nanotechnology Right the First Time 130

John Balbus, Richard Denison, Karen Florini and Scott Walsh

12 Risk Management and Regulation in an Emerging

Technology 140
Roland Clift

13 Nanotechnology and Nanoparticle Toxicity: A Case

for Precaution 154
C. Vyvyan Howard and December S. K. Ikah

14 The Future of Nanotechnology in Food Science and

Nutrition: Can Science Predict its Safety? 167
Árpád Pusztai and Susan Bardocz

Part Four Ethics and Public Understanding

15 The Global Ethics of Nanotechnology 183

Geoffrey Hunt

16 Going Public: Risk, Trust and Public Understanding

of Nanotechnologies 196
Julie Barnett, Anna Carr and Roland Clift

17 Dwarfing the Social? Nanotechnology Lessons from

the Biotechnology Front 213
Edna F. Einsiedel and Linda Goldenberg

Part Five Law and Regulation

18 Nanotechnologies and the Law of Patents: A Collision

Course 225
Siva Vaidhyanathan

19 Nanotechnologies and Civil Liability 237

Alan Hannah and Geoffrey Hunt
 Contents vii

20 Nanotechnologies and the Ethical Conduct of Research

Involving Human Subjects 247
Lorraine Sheremeta

21 Nanotechnologies and Corporate Criminal Liability 259

Celia Wells and Juanita Elias

Part Six Conclusion

22 What Makes Nanotechnologies Special? 273

Michael D. Mehta and Geoffrey Hunt

Appendix: Measurement Scales and Glossary 282

Index 289
 List of Figures, Tables and Boxes

Figures
2.1 Objects of approximate size from 103 m to 10
9 m 14
13.1 PM10 and daily mortality from cities around the world.
Expressed as a percentage change in daily mortality associated
with a 10mg m
3 increase in PM10 161
13.2 Effects of ultrafine particles (UP) and fine particles (PM2:5 ) on
mortality for prevalent diseases (total, cardiovascular,
respiratory, others) 162

Tables
7.1 NNI budget breakdowns by agency (dollars in millions) 78
8.1 2004 EU Consultation outcomes in health, environment etc 99
9.1 Government of Canada recommended domains for
nanotechnology R&D 106
9.2 Government of Canada conceptualization of nanotechnology
R&D stages 108
9.3 Enabling technologies funded by Technology Partnerships
Canada 113
12.1 Some possible applications of nanotechnology 142
12.2 The elements of current risk assessment 144
13.1 Classification of respirable particles 155

Boxes
6.1 Japanese attitude survey 69
 List of Contributors

Christopher J. Backhouse is professor at the University of Alberta in the

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Before joining the Univer-
sity of Alberta in 1999, he gained extensive industrial experience. His research
involves microfabrication, miniaturized instrumentation and the application of
micro/nanobiotechnologies. His research group spans engineering, nanoscience
and medicine, and has developed a range of instruments, techniques and
microfabricated devices implementing nanobiotechnology applications on
microfabricated devices.

John Balbus MD MPH directs the Health programme at the non-profit

Environmental Defense in Washington DC. Prior to joining Environmental
Defense in 2002, he spent seven years at George Washington University,
where he was founding director of the Center for Risk Science and Public
Health and served as acting chairman of the Department of Environmental
and Occupational Health. Dr Balbus’ background combines training and
experience in clinical medicine with expertise in epidemiology, toxicology
and risk sciences; he is Board-certified in both internal medicine and in occu-
pational and environmental medicine. He currently serves as a member of
the US National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and
Toxicology; the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Children’s
Health Protection Advisory Committee; and the US National Academy of
Sciences panel on ‘Applications of Toxicogenomic Technologies to Predictive
Toxicology’.

Susan Bardocz is an internationally respected scientist who was a part of the

research team on genetically modified (GM)-potato work and is now also a
collaborator in the Tromso research project on the safety of GM foods.

Julie Barnett obtained her PhD in 1998, and is now senior research fellow in
the Psychology Department of the University of Surrey, UK. Julie’s main
research interests lie in the fields of risk perception and risk communication,
and in the contribution that social psychology can make to greater under-
standing and improved practice in these areas. Current research projects
are exploring public understandings of precaution in relation to mobile
x Nanotechnology

telecommunications, the use of lay knowledge in industry and public attitudes

to genomics.

Anna Carr is an inter-disciplinary scholar whose research interests lie in the

relationship between local places, knowledge practices and scientific truth
claims. Her intellectual agenda is to increase community engagement with
(professional) environmental science. She is currently based in Sydney,
Australia working for the Department of Infrastructure, Planning and Natural
Resources and holds a visiting fellowship at the University of Surrey, UK.

Timothy Caulfield is a professor in the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of

Medicine and Dentistry, and is the research director of the Health Law Insti-
tute at the University of Alberta. In 2002, he received a Canada research chair
in Health Law and Policy. His research has focused on two general areas: (1)
genetics, ethics and the law and (2) the legal implications of health care
reform in Canada.

Roland Clift CBE FREng FIChemE HonFCIWEM is distinguished professor

of Environmental Technology and founding director of the Centre for Environ-
mental Strategy, University of Surrey, UK. He is a member of the Royal
Commission on Environmental Pollution, of the International Expert Group
on application of Life Cycle Assessment to waste management, and has been
awarded the Sir Frank Whittle medal by the Royal Academy of Engineering
for his leading role in developing the holistic life cycle assessment of products.
He was a member of the 2004 Working Group on Nanotechnology of the
Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering.

Richard Denison PhD is a senior scientist at Environmental Defense in

Washington DC. Prior to joining Environmental Defense in 1987, he served
as analyst and assistant project director for the US Office of Technology
Assessment. He specializes in nanotechnology and chemical hazard assessment,
and serves on the National Pollution Prevention and Toxics Advisory
Committee to the US EPA and is on the Steering Group for Nanotechnology
of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

K. Eric Drexler presented the basic concepts of molecular manufacturing in

a scientific article (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1981),
and wrote Engines of Creation (1986) to introduce a broad audience to the
prospect of advanced nanotechnologies, and Nanosystems (AAP, 1992, Most
Outstanding Computer Science Book) to provide a graduate-level introduction
to the field. His research in nanotechnology ranges from computational model-
ling of molecular machines to engineering analysis of molecular manufacturing
systems and their potential products. In support of US federal policy develop-
ment, he has provided presentations and briefings to (among others) the Senate
Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space; the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy; and the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
 List of Contributors xi

Staff. He is a founder and current chairman of the Foresight Institute, a non-

profit educational organization established to help prepare for advanced
technologies.

Edna F. Einsiedel is a professor of communication studies at the University of

Calgary. She is a principal investigator on a genomics, economic, ethical,
environmental, legal and social studies project funded by Genome Canada.

Juanita Elias is a lecturer in international politics at the University of

Adelaide, Australia. She is the author of Fashioning Inequality: The Multi-
national Corporation and Gendered Employment in a Globalising World,
(Ashgate, 2004) and has also published articles in New Political Economy and
International Feminist Journal of Politics. Her research interests include
employment practices in multinational corporations, the regulation of
corporations and corporate codes of conduct, International Political Economy
(IPE) and gender perspectives in political economy. She has worked previously
as a lecturer at the University of Manchester and as a researcher at the
Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Business Relationships,
Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS), at Cardiff University.

Karen Florini JD is a senior attorney at Environmental Defense in

Washington DC. She focuses on nanotechnology, toxic chemicals, antibiotic
resistance and other environmental health issues, and has participated in
numerous federal advisory committees on topics such as lead poisoning, hazar-
dous waste management and children’s environmental health.

Linda Goldenberg is completing her PhD at the University of Calgary,

Faculty of Communication and Culture, where she is applying her expertise
in science, nanotechnology and ethics to the area of national security, critical
infrastructure protection and emergency management. Her current research
focus is intelligent technologies, such as public warning systems, in the national
security context. Linda’s expertise includes research in broadband technology,
scientific imaging and complex systems analysis. She is a contributor to the
recent US National Science Foundation report ‘Nanotechnology: Societal
Implications – Maximizing Benefits for Humanity’.

Alan Hannah is a solicitor advocate and is an employment law partner in

Brachers solicitors, Maidstone and London. Additionally he used to practise
in the field of medical negligence and was a member of the Maidstone Health
Authority Ethics Committee for many years. He is currently a member of the
Ethics Committee of the British Association of Paediatric Surgeons. He is a
former part-time Employment Tribunal chairman. His work now includes
corporate advice and general strategy in employment related business matters.
He advises and acts for a number of NHS Trusts and commercial concerns.
Alan retains an interest in the law relating to liability for tortious acts and
omissions.
xii Nanotechnology

C. Vyvyan Howard MB ChB PhD FRCPath is a medically qualified toxico-

pathologist who has specialized in low dose developmental toxicology. He is
currently professor of bioimaging at the Universty of Ulster, Northern Ireland
and editor in chief of Nanotoxicology, a new peer reviewed journal in the field of
nanotechnology. He is a past president of the Royal Microscopical Society and
has served on two European Union (EU) expert groups addressing the toxicity
of nanoparticles. He co-edited the book Particulate Matter: Properties and
Effects Upon Health, Springer-Verlag Telos, 1999.

Geoffrey Hunt BSc(Hons) MLitt PhD is full professor of ethics and global
policies at the University of Surrey (European Institute of Health and Medical
Sciences), and a member of the university’s Nanotechnology Forum. As an
ethics specialist he has published books and papers on public accountability,
professional and healthcare ethics, and public interest disclosure. He has
been a consultant to various professional bodies. As a philosopher he has
published in philosophy of medicine and healthcare, and political philosophy.
He lectured in Africa for 12 years, and in 2001 he was British Visiting Professor
in healthcare ethics at the Medical School of Kagawa University, Japan. He has
lectured on ‘nanotechnology and society’ in several universities and research
institutes in Japan and the UK. He is the founder of the public accountability
non-governmental organization (NGO) ‘Freedom to Care’.

December S. K. Ikah MB BS is in the Developmental Toxico-Pathology

Group, Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of
Liverpool, UK. Dr Ikah trained in medicine in Nigeria. Currently he is
researching the toxicology of nano-particles at the University of Liverpool.
He is specializing, in particular, in the effects of particle size and surface
chemistry on the developing nervous system.

Karan V. I. S. Kaler, professor of electrical and computer engineering at

the University of Calgary, has more than 70 refereed publications and 3
patents. He is the director of the BioMEMS and the Bioelectrics Laboratories
at the University of Calgary. He developed the first automated instrument
capable of non-invasive interrogation and quantification of the electrical
properties of individual cells and the first micromachined dielectrophoresis
filter for the separation of viable from non-viable mammalian cells in commer-
cial scale bioreactors.

Kristen Kulinowski is a faculty fellow in the Department of Chemistry and

executive director for education and public policy of the Center for Biological
and Environmental Nanotechnology at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Her research interests include policy of emerging technologies and science
education.

Matsuda Masami is a professor in the Graduate division of the Faculty of

Nursing, University of Shizuoka, Japan. His interests are in health care
 List of Contributors xiii

systems, primary health care, public health and global health. He is an adviser
in health and welfare for the Shizuoka City Mayor, and has advised authorities
of other cities, prefectures, national government and patient groups in Japan.
He has been an expert in Thailand, Yemen and Honduras. He is a board
member of the Japanese Society of Health and Welfare Policy, and of the
Japanese Society of International Health Cooperation. He is also on the
editorial board of the international academic journal Nursing Ethics (Arnold).

Michael Mehta is professor of sociology and chair, Sociology of Biotech-

nology Program, University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He specializes in
science, technology and society. Interests include risk perception and commu-
nication on biotechnology, nuclear safety, blood safety, endocrine modulators
and nanotechnology. His academic background includes a BA in psychology,
a Masters in environmental studies, a PhD in sociology and post-doctoral
training in policy studies. He has held academic appointments at York Univer-
sity (Faculty of Environmental Studies) and Queen’s University (School of
Policy Studies and School of Environmental Studies), and has taught graduate
and undergraduate students for more than 15 years. He is a co-founder of the
Environmental Studies Association of Canada (ESAC).

Kirsty Mills received her BSc in electrical engineering in 1974, and her PhD
in 1979, both from the University of Nottingham in the UK. She developed
III–V devices and integrated circuits at Plessey Research (UK) from 1979 to
1980, Thomson CSF (France) from 1980 to 1986 and General Electric
(Syracuse) from 1986 to 1991. A professor in the Electrical and Computer
Engineering Department at the University of New Mexico, she is professor
and the associate director of the Center for High Technology Materials. In
response to the increasing need for interdisciplinary function, she initiated
and leads the University of New Mexico’s ‘Science and Society Dialogue’
project, embraced by a wide range of university departments, schools and
institutes. As well as teaching engineering ethics, Dr Mills offers seminars
and workshops to a range of stakeholder groups.

Obayashi Masayuki is professor of bioethics, Kyoto Institute of Technology,

Japan. His specialty is history and philosophy of science, especially history
and methodology of molecular biology. He has taught bioethics and Science,
Technology and Society (STS) at some universities and medical schools He
is now interested in ethical problems of genetics and the professional ethics
of physicians, scientists and engineers.

Linda M. Pilarski, professor of oncology at the University of Alberta

and senior scientist of the Alberta Cancer Board, has more than 150 articles
and 3 patents. Her research focuses on blood cancers, molecular biology
and cancer profiling on microfluidics platforms. She is on the board of the
Microsystems Technology Research Institute and on the scientific advisory
boards for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (US), the International
xiv Nanotechnology

Myeloma Foundation (US) and the Research Fund for macroglobulinaemia

Waldenstrom’s (US).

Árpád Pusztai MSc PhD FRSE is a consultant to the Norwegian Institute of

Gene Ecology (GenOk), Tromso, Norway; formerly Rowett Research Insti-
tute, Aberdeen, UK. He was born in Budapest (Hungary) in 1930 and qualified
in Chemistry. He received his PhD in biochemistry and physiology from the
University of London; did postdoctoral studies at the Lister Institute of
Preventive Medicine in London, and then joined the protein chemistry
department at the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen, Scotland in 1963.
He worked at the Rowett until his ‘official’ retirement as a senior scientist in
1990. From 1990 to end of 1998 he was engaged in research as a senior research
fellow of the Rowett at the request of the Institute’s director and coordinated
six major research programmes, and several national and European research
programmes until, as a result of his disclosures on our GM-potato work,
his contract was prematurely terminated and not renewed for 1999. From
2001 he has been collaborating in a Norwegian Research Council-funded
GM food research programme at the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology,
University of Tromso.

Lori Sheremeta is a lawyer and research associate at the Health Law Institute
at the Faculty of Law at the University of Alberta, and is cross-appointed to
the National Institute for Nanotechnology. Lori’s academic interests focus
on the legal, ethical and social issues implicated in new technologies including
genetics, genomics, regenerative medicine and nanotechnology. She is particu-
larly interested in the commercialization of research, the translation of research
findings to society and the role of intellectual property in this process. Lori is a
member of the Genome Prairie GE3 LS research team, the Stem Cell Network,
the Advanced Food and Materials Network and the Canadian Biotechnology
Secretariat International Public Opinion Research Team. She has written
numerous scoping papers for various federal government departments and
agencies, including Health Canada (intellectual property, nanotechnology),
the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee (biobanking), the Inter-
agency Panel on Research Ethics (nanotechnology and human subject research)
and Genome Canada (Canada’s GE3 LS research capacity). Through the Office
of the National Science Advisor, Lori was recently appointed to a Canadian
Expert Panel on nanotechnology.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, is the author

of Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it
Threatens Creativity (New York University Press, 2001) and The Anarchist
in the Library (Basic Books, 2004). Vaidhyanathan has written for many
periodicals, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York
Times Magazine, MSNBC.COM, Salon.com, openDemocracy.net, and The
Nation. After five years as a professional journalist, Siva earned a PhD in
American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He has taught at
 List of Contributors xv

Wesleyan University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is

currently professor and director of the undergraduate programme in Com-
munication Studies in Culture and Communication at New York University.
He lives in Greenwich Village, US. He writes a regular column, ‘Remote
Control: Life in America’, at www.opendemocracy.net.

Scott Walsh MBA is a project manager at Environmental Defense in

Washington, DC. He manages partnerships with leading companies to create
environmental improvements that make business sense, and is currently
leading corporate partnership efforts to ensure the safe development of
nanotechnology. He is also participating in projects addressing sustainable
seafood, antibiotic resistance and vehicle-fleet management. Prior to joining
Environmental Defense, he served as a business strategy consultant with
Boston Consulting Group and as an environmental policy consultant with
Jellinek, Schwartz and Connolly.

Celia Wells is professor and deputy head of the Law School, Cardiff Univer-
sity. She is involved in the university’s Economic and Social Research Council
Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society.
Her research is mainly in criminal law and corporate criminal liability. She is
author of Corporations and Criminal Responsibility (2nd edition OUP, 2001)
and Reconstructing Criminal Law (with Nicola Lacey and Oliver Quick, 3rd
edition, Cambridge University Press, 2003). Recent work includes ‘The
Impact of Feminist Thinking on Criminal Law’ (2004 Criminal Law Review)
and an essay on corporate complicity in human rights violations in Alston
(ed) Non State Actors in International Law (OUP, 2005).
 Preface and Acknowledgements

Until very recently most people associated nanotechnology with science fiction-
based accounts that tended to focus on fantastical devices and applications.
With recent developments in nanoscience (for example greater control over
atomic structure due in part to the atomic force microscope), nanotechnology
has entered the commercial realm, and has simultaneously begun the journey
of finding its space within the social imaginary. This book represents a leg of
this journey. By exploring the risks and benefits of nano-derived processes
and products, Nanotechnology: Risk, Ethics and Law considers the shifting
social space that this technology currently occupies. By examining how nano-
technology has been introduced to a range of actors, this book explores how
different governments in Europe, Japan, the US and Canada have responded
to the nanotechnology revolution. Additionally, this book considers how
experience with other technologies (for example biotechnology) may influence
how the general public, non-governmental organizations, scientists, regulators
and legal communities around the world are likely to frame nanotechnology.
Lastly, this book provides readers with a unique opportunity to think about
the ethical and conceptual issues raised by the introduction and dissemination
of this nanotechnology. In short, it provides a platform for readers to concep-
tualize the multifaceted impacts of nanotechnology by pointing out several of
the gaps in our collective understanding of how this transformative technology
is shaping the topography of the 21st century.
Geoffrey Hunt first developed an interest in nanotechnology in late 2002
when planning a visit to Japan to discuss the ethical implications of techno-
logical futures, and he put forward a tentative overview of nanotechnological
possibilities in a presentation at the Seizon Institute, Tokyo in 2003. Hunt
reciprocated with an invitation to Japanese colleagues and others the following
year to a small international workshop that he organized on the subject at
St Mary’s College (a college of the University of Surrey), in Twickenham,
UK. It was on that occasion in April 2004 that Hunt and Mehta first met,
and they formed the idea of this collection while taking a break along the
river Thames at Teddington Lock. Dr Arthur Naylor, Principal of St Mary’s
was most generous in his support for this workshop. Rev. Michael Hayes and
Dr David Jones of the college are to be warmly thanked for possessing the
boldness and curiosity to support what at the time might have seemed to
 Preface and Acknowledgements xvii

many others a rather peculiar and unlikely interest. The Wellcome Trust made
the meeting financially possible, and we are deeply thankful for that. Taking
what we thought might be the risk of a multidisciplinary Tower of Babel we
were not only relieved but heartened by the efforts that contributors made to
understand each other’s disciplinary perspectives on and questions about a
new field.
At the Twickenham meeting we were fortunate to have contributions from
Professor Johnjoe McFadden (cell biology), Professor John Hay (chemistry),
Dr Michael Hughes (biomechanics), and Dr Anna Carr (psychology), all
from the University of Surrey. Professor Matsuda Masami (public health),
Professor Morishita Naoki (philosophy) and Professor Obayashi Masayuki
(history of science) provided insights from Japanese technological, public
health and cultural perspectives. Other contributors were Professor Richard
Strohman (molecular biology), Dr Árpád Pusztai (gut biology), Mr Alan
Hannah (legal practice), Dr Harold Hillman (cell biology), Dr Susan Bardocz
(biology), Mr Roger Higman (environmental protection), Hunt (philosophy)
and Mehta (sociology), and there were theological and ethical perspectives
from Rev. Hayes and Dr Jones. Although only some of the original workshop
participants appear in this volume all of them provided novel ideas and insights.
Thanks to a travel grant from the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, Hunt
had visited Japan in October 2004 and spoke on the subject at the Kyoto Insti-
tute of Technology, at Tokyo University and at the National Institute of
Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), in the Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry, Tokyo at the invitation of Dr Ata Masafumi,
senior researcher in nanotechnology strategy. This meeting, one in an ongoing
series, attracted over 50 representatives from government, industry and busi-
ness, and was reported in Nikkei Nanotechnology. Such was the interest in
the social and ethical dimension of nanotechnology that Hunt returned to
Japan in March 2005, with a travel grant from the University of Surrey, and
spoke on the subject at two more universities and at the Tsukuba branch of
AIST at the invitation of Dr Abe Shuji, deputy director of the Nanotechnology
Research Institute. The unswerving support and kindness of Professor
Matsuda Masami has made these busy itineraries in Japan run smoothly,
with a little help from the speed and precision of the shinkansen (bullet train).
Subsequent brief joint articles by Matsuda and Hunt in three Japanese journals
introduced some specific questions regarding the social implications and risks
of nanotechnology to the scientific and professional community in Japan.
(Note that in this book, for Japanese names we have followed the Japanese
convention of placing the family name first.)
Hunt also wishes to record the support of his colleagues in the Nanotech-
nology Forum at the University of Surrey, especially Professor Gary Stevens
(polymer science), Professor Ugur Tüzün (process engineering), and Professor
Roland Clift CBE, pioneer of the life cycle approach to environmental manage-
ment. Professor Robin Attfield (environmental philosophy) and Professor
Steven Norris (cultural studies) provided opportunities for challenging
questions at a Cardiff University seminar led by Hunt in November 2003.
xviii Nanotechnology

Michael Mehta’s interest in nanotechnology began in 2001 upon being

approached by an undergraduate student at the University of Saskatchewan
named Crystal Wallin. Wallin encouraged Mehta to consider the links between
nanotechnology and biotechnology and to eventually put together a grant
application to fund research on how developments in nanotechnology were
unfolding within Canada. This grant application was rejected by social science
peer reviewers from one of Canada’s major federal granting agencies with the
observation that one cannot study nanotechnology since it is nothing more
than ‘science fiction’. This spurred Mehta to develop an active programme of
research on the social impacts of nanotechnology.
Mehta is one of the few academics in Canada to explore the social and ethical
dimensions of nanotechnology. He has presented his work in this area in many
parts of the world: Canada, the US, the UK, Germany, Spain, Iceland and
Singapore. His presentations have been on a wide array of topics including
expanding the research base on risk perception and risk communication to
incorporate nanotechnology, the impact of nanotechnology on the enterprise
of science, the role of technological convergence as a driver of regulatory
reform, nanoethics, nanomedicine and its ethical and social challenges, nano-
technology and surveillance, nanotechnology and its anticipated economic
impacts, and the lessons that can be learned from biotechnology and nuclear
technology to assist in predicting the challenges posed by nanotechnology.
With Dr Linda Pilarski from the University of Alberta and others, Mehta
shares a CAD$1.5 million grant (2003–2008) from the Canadian Institutes of
Health Research (CIHR) to explore the social, ethical and legal issues related
to the development and use of microfluidic devices for genetic analysis. The
objective of this project is to develop microfluidics-based platforms having
photolithographically defined networks of microchannels whose versatility
has led to terms such as ‘lab on a chip’. These platforms are able to sort cells
and analyse their genomic profiles, individual genes, chromosomes and mito-
chondrial DNA, thereby bringing the benefits of the genomics and proteomics
revolutions to the clinic. These novel, integrated microfluidic platforms will
implement microsystems and nanoscience to develop automated, real time
multiplex cell manipulation and genetic analysis. Mehta’s role in this project
is to: (1) assess how Canadians understand issues related to health information,
genetic testing and privacy; (2) assess how medical practitioners (oncologists) in
Canada perceive the use of microfluidic platform technologies for clinical
applications; and (3) to hold consensus conferences on the risks and benefits
associated with the use of microfluidic platform technologies for non-clinical
purposes. In all likelihood this innovation will be the first available consumer
application of a medical device that incorporates nanotechnology.
Mehta wishes to thank Zaheer Baber, Timothy Caulfield, Abdallah Daar,
Edna Einsiedel, Linda Goldenberg, Jose Lopez, Chris MacDonald, Lori
Sheremeta, Peter Singer, Crystal Wallin and Gregor Wolbring for the intellec-
tual stimulation and debate over the years. Together we are the nanotechnology
and society cohort that has helped make Canada a significant player in this
field of inquiry. Mehta also wishes to thank his spouse Kathy Edwards for
 Preface and Acknowledgements xix

her assistance with this book. Kathy did much of the original formatting to get
the manuscript ready for peer review.
Chapters 2, 3, 4, 10 and 17 come from a special issue on nanotechnology of
the Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society (February 2004). That issue of
the journal, co-edited by Michael Mehta and Zaheer Baber, included several
other contributions that add to a slowly accumulating literature in nano-
technology within the Science, Technology and Society field. Chapter 20 by
Lori Sheremeta is drawn from a special issue on nanotechnology of the
Health Law Review (autumn 2004). Chapter 11, John Balbus et al, ‘Getting
Nanotechnology Right the First Time’, is reprinted with permission from
Issues in Science and Technology, summer 2005, pp65–71, copyright 2005 by
the University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, US. All remaining contributions
in this volume have been originally commissioned for this book.
Responsibility for the views expressed in this volume lies only with the co-
editors and the individual contributors.

Geoffrey Hunt, Guildford, UK

Michael Mehta, Saskatoon, Canada
28th November 2005
 1

Introduction:
The Challenge of Nanotechnologies

Geoffrey Hunt and Michael D. Mehta

Nanotechnologies are making the leap from science fiction to science reality.
The overwhelming majority of people have not yet noticed this transition,
but the technology of the vanishingly small will be expansively influential in
the next couple of decades. For it is not just a new range of technologies but
a new social force: a driver of techno-socio-cultural change. Like any other
family of radical technologies ‘nanotechnology’ is not just a set of techniques
that have appeared independently of society and about which we can now
make application-based decisions. It is emerging within an existing nexus of
decisions, relationships and values. It is not as though it is now a new subject
of completely free choice for the human race: it is emerging within a network
of relationships and processes that manifest the choices we have already
made over history and are currently living with, for better or worse. The
family of nanoscale technologies we call ‘nanotechnology’, like several other
critical issues of our time, stands at a juncture between choices for human
survival and betterment, and clinging to our global inheritance – not just
material inheritance but a largely outdated intellectual and attitudinal inheri-
tance. Which way, nanotechnology?

History
The concept of a nanoscale technology begins with the boldly speculative 1959
article ‘There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom’ by Nobel Prize winning theore-
tical physicist Richard Feynman (Feynman, 1959). In it he said he was not
afraid to consider the question whether ‘ultimately – in the great future – we
can arrange the atoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down!’.
The word ‘nanotechnology’ was actually first coined by Japanese scientist
Taniguchi Nori in 1974, but in the much narrower context of ultrafine
2 Nanotechnology

machining (see Chapter 6). A futuristic envisioning of the Feynman hypothesis

as a socially transforming technology had to await Eric Drexler’s 1986 book
Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (Drexler, 1986). In a
1990 ‘Afterword’ he re-states his vision: ‘we are moving towards assemblers,
toward an era of molecular manufacturing giving thorough and inexpensive
control of the structure of matter’ (Drexler, 1990, p240). His central idea, of
using nanoscale mechanisms of assembling molecules to manufacture any
substances useful to humans, was technically elaborated in his 1995 work
entitled Nanosystems (Drexler, 1992). Meanwhile the instruments and tech-
niques of nanotechnology have brought the vision closer. The atomic force
microscope, the scanning tunnelling microscope, magnetic force microscopy,
advanced spectroscopy and electrochemistry, nanoscale lithography, molecular
self-assembly techniques and others are being perfected and new ones are
proliferating.1
In Chapter 3 of this book, Drexler complains that whereas ‘nanotech-
nology’, from his starting point, had meant nanomachines of some sort that
would be able to build desired entities atom-by-atom (molecular manufacture),
it has now shifted to mean any technology involving nanoscale processes and
products, and this has ‘obscured the Feynman vision’. He emphasizes that
the criticism that nanoreplicators are impossible misses the mark, for molecular
manufacture requires no such thing. He explains that it is chemical self-
assembly that is the fundamental manufacturing process. ‘It is time for the
nanotechnology community to reclaim the Feynman vision in its grand and
unsettling entirety’, he declares. Even on, or especially on, the basis of this
core concept many social and ethical issues arise. Some of the most important
are examined by the Centre for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN).2
Nanotechnology, then, can be more broadly viewed as the contemporary
result of a natural ‘downsizing’ progression in nearly all the sciences and
their techniques, whether chemistry, materials science, physics, biology, indus-
trial processes, pharmacology, genetic engineering, electronic engineering,
neuropsychology and so on. ‘Nanotechnologies’, in the plural, is a more helpful
label. There is an inclination, in universities for example, to re-brand almost
everything as ‘nanotechnology’ to attract funding and prestige. Of course, if
this thing called ‘nanotechnology’ takes on a negative image in the mind of
the public, we may see a rapid re-re-branding, with the ‘nano’ being dropped
again. This will not alter the fact that a radical change is in fact running through
advanced technologies, even if mere size (the nanoscale) is not always sufficient
to capture what this change really amounts to. In Chapter 5, Hunt urges that a
complex systems approach is necessary for a better understanding of develop-
ments in nanotechnoscience.
In this book we do not focus on molecular manufacture, but take a broad
view of technologies working at the nanoscale. In fact, quite a lot of emphasis
here is on nanoparticles in materials, and in the short term this seems an
appropriate focus, partly because of issues of safety. We think that our
general approach reflects the current state of thinking around nanotechno-
logical developments.
 Introduction: The Challenge of Nanotechnologies 3

The nanoscale
Taking a lead from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO),
the defining features of nanotechnological scale relate to structures, devices and
systems that have novel properties and functions because of their size, with a
length of scale of approximately 1–100 nanometre (nm) range, in at least one
dimension. Among other things, the USPTO, states: ‘Nanotechnology
research and development includes manipulation, processing, and fabrication
under control of the nanoscale structures and their integration into larger
material components, systems and architectures. Within these larger-scale
assemblies, the control and construction of their structures and components
remains at the nanometre scale.’3
One nanometre is one billionth of a metre, and to give this some reality it may
help to think, roughly, of the scale of viruses (see the Appendix for examples).
One billionth of a metre is approximately ten hydrogen atoms side by side, or
about one thousandth of the length of a typical bacterium. Since a single
human hair is around 80,000nm in width, objects measured in a few hundred
nanometres are invisible to the human eye.4 At this scale nanotechnology is
operating at the border between classical and quantum physics. As explained
in this book, nanoscale particles and other entities often have quite novel, and
even unexpected, properties compared with properties of the corresponding
bulk substances. It is this novelty – and the uncertainties that go with it – that
is both the source of excitement and benefits and of concern and risks. Nanotech-
nology is such that we cannot even be sure, taken a longer view, that the benefits
and risks are like anything we have previously known. New concepts (see the
Glossary in the Appendix) and revised standards of hazard and risk assessment
seem to be inevitable. General areas of application are as follows:

. manufacturing and industrial processes (catalysts, filters, and so on);

. transport, aeronautical and space engineering;
. biomedicine, pharmaceuticals, targeted drug delivery;
. imaging, sensors, monitoring;
. environmental management;
. food technology, additives, packaging;
. materials, surfaces, textiles, fabrics;
. sports and entertainment technology;
. cosmetics, fragrances, toiletries;
. Information and Communications Technology (ICT);
. intelligence, surveillance and defence.

Examples of specific products containing engineered nanoparticles (such as

carbon nanotubes) that are already on the consumer market are: textiles,
sportswear, golf balls, tennis rackets, plastic mouldings in vehicles and scratch
resistant paint, car tyres, sunscreen and certain electronic consumer goods.
Many other products, including nano-catalysts and nano-filters, are available
to manufacturers.
4 Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology in society
Anyone coming to nanotechnology for the first time may experience mixed feel-
ings: perhaps excitement tinged with anxiety. Kulinowski warns in Chapter 2
that Wow! (wonderful) could easily turn to Yuck! (horrible) in the public
mind, depending on several factors not necessarily under the control of
scientists, technologists, researchers, corporations and government depart-
ments and agencies. ‘Nanotechnology’ as a conception will be nurtured
within pre-existing popular mindsets; and the media and popular art forms
(films, novels and so on) will have an impact on those mindsets and should
not be underestimated. Nanotechnology is as much a public issue as it is an
expert issue, and as much a social science subject as a natural science subject.
Kulinowski points out that, despite this latent instability in perception,
there remains a significant disparity between the research effort that is going
into applications and the scant attention given to the whole range of social
implications of nanotechnology. Here we could include public understanding,
media reception, cultural and religious issues, ethical and legal dimensions, the
globalizing context, governance and accountability, disruptive impact on other
technologies and on economies, and political and military implications.
Of course, it is not just a case of either a Wow! or a Yuck! response, but
one of choices and tensions between human welfare benefits and hazards and
risks to human health and the environment. The most important questions
about nanotechnologies may not be posed, or not posed sufficiently quickly,
systematically and deeply, if it is left to the powerful forces of commerce and
competition. In the context of the latter the benefits may be stressed and the
questions skewed towards issues of sufficiency of investment, profitability,
receptivity of markets, intellectual property, speed of innovation and
application (Mehta, 2002), the necessary economic infrastructures, funding
of research and development, commercial confidentiality and the like. These
are all important questions, but they belong to a discourse that may overlap
with, but is not the same as, the human welfare discourse. This book makes
forays into both discourses, paying more attention to the latter to help achieve
an overall balance, and emerges with concerns as well as hopes.

Regional economic forces

In Part Two it is shown that almost every region of the world that has sufficient
material and financial resources is investing in nanotechnology: in research and
development, in applications, in conferencing, advertising and public relations,
in new infrastructure, institutions and networks, in commercialization, and in
educational initiatives. For the time being, the poorer regions, such as Africa
and parts of Asia and Latin America, can only stand on the sidelines.
Japan was, and still is, a principal conceptual originator of nanotechnology,
especially in materials and electronics, and investments are significant. As
Matsuda, Hunt and Obayashi point out in Chapter 6, innovations are moving
 Introduction: The Challenge of Nanotechnologies 5

ahead quickly both in the laboratories of corporations and in those of well-

resourced government bodies such as the National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). The historically strategic position
of nanotechnology in Japan is still not clear. The country is only now
recognizing the importance of sustainability and corporate responsibility and,
albeit rather more slowly than Europe, implementing the necessary changes.
The precautionary principle (a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach; see Chapter
10) is still regarded with suspicion for the most part, but significant actors
and agencies are waking up to the potential of nanotechnology in new market
demands for the innovative tools and processes needed for sustainable produc-
tion. Tense regional geopolitics (especially its future relations with China), the
slow pace of internal economic reforms, and a political divide between nation-
alists and ‘pacifists’, will also shape the role of nanotechnology in Japan.
There is no doubt that the US is leading nanotechnology as a commercial
enterprise, in terms of investments, patents, research and military applications.
Like Japan, and unlike Europe, the American research and business establish-
ment can count, for the most part, on popular support for science and technology.
In Chapter 7 Mills explains the enthusiastic coordinated effort being made
through directed investments and new institutional means. Research into the
social implications is not being neglected, but as Mills asks, since such research
is mainly federally funded and carried out by the nanotechnology community
itself, ‘who will guard the guardians?’ Non-governmental organization
(NGO) awareness of nanotechnology in Japan may still be at a low level, but
this is not so in the US. In the latter, NGOs were invited, but refused to join
a centre funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to examine the
impacts of nanotechnology on society. In Chapter 11 four experts with the
American NGO Environmental Defense examine nanotechnology and argue
that on this occasion we have an opportunity to get it right the first time, but
new approaches and cooperation are urgently required.
In the current climate, the precautionary principle – which admittedly has
some conceptual and implementation difficulties – is viewed with even more
suspicion in the US than it is in Japan. A nodal point of controversy for
nanotechnology is already growing around a precautionary-based reform of the
chemicals regulatory regime, with the European Union (EU) taking a lead
which is not very welcome elsewhere (Chapter 8). Mills suggests that ‘Europe
and the US are at very different stages in the process of moving from the era of
risk-taking . . . to an era of risk-prevention’. It seems that the tensions over nano-
technology between business and some NGOs, and between different approaches
to regulation, can only become deeper in the near future. Certainly in the 25
countries of the EU there appears to be what Hunt calls a ‘dual tension’ (Chapter
8). These are the opposing pressures often created (but not necessarily) by a drive
for increased global competitiveness at the same time as moves for sustainable
production and consumption, and between the diversity and participatory
democracy cherished by many Europeans and the drive towards ‘integration’
on all levels. In some ways the place of nanotechnologies in these European
dilemmas is a microcosm of its place in the political economy of the world at large.
6 Nanotechnology

Other parts of the world have a stake in nanotechnological development,

including China, Korea, some non-EU European nations, Taiwan, Australia,
India and, importantly, Canada. In Chapter 9 Goldenberg points out some-
thing that may be distinctive about the Canadian approach which the rest of
the world should heed. It is ‘inextricably linked to social policy and goals’
rather than being driven by a commercial or economic agenda. Canada,
unlike Japan, the US and the EU, currently has no national nanotechnology
strategy, so nanotechnology is positioned within wider goals including health
care and security. While this may have its strengths in terms of social welfare,
Goldenberg suggests it may engender an insular kind of ‘complacency’.

Ethical? Yes, no and perhaps

Complacency cannot be afforded from an ethical point of view. Parts Three and
Four of this book delineate some general ethical concerns, and investigates
potential hazards, risks and benefits expected to flow from advances in
nanotechnology. Looking at the ethical question globally in Chapter 15,
Hunt claims that in order to bring our collective power into harmony with an
understanding of the unintended global threats that arise from the application
of that power, we need a new sense of human responsibility. Economic injustice,
war, environmental degradation and over-consumption (consumerism) are four
global human facts that provided the actual context for nanotechnological
developments. He attempts to outline the stresses between our inheritance
and the prospects of survival and enhanced human welfare. Who will benefit?
Will a continuing unequal distribution of benefits, deepened by nano-
technology, destabilize the world. Global attitudes, outlooks and ways of
thinking are desperately needed.
Contributors question in Chapters 4 and 10 how much we have really
learned from the adverse consequences of the hasty introduction of previous
technologies such as nuclear technology, ICT and biotechnology. The nuclear
power and genetically modified (GM) food industries have already experienced
serious setbacks, whether justifiably or not. Nanotechnology (and stem cell
technology) stands on the threshold of similar difficulties unless, as Mehta
emphasizes in Chapter 10, the public is consulted and involved early
enough and often enough. For Mehta, new ways of thinking would include
challenges to the notion of ‘substantial equivalence’ (that underpinned GMF
development), empowering product labelling policies and thinking through
precautionary approaches ‘for addressing uncertainty and heightened under-
standing of how risks and benefits should be balanced’. New approaches will
also eventually be needed to issues of confidentiality and privacy when one
confronts the convergence and medicalizing consequences of biomedical
applications of nanotechnology, as described by Pilarski et al in Chapter 4.
What the hazards and risks of nanotechnologies might be are outlined by
Clift – a well-known proponent of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in environ-
mental management (Chapter 12) – and these are concretely illustrated in the
 Introduction: The Challenge of Nanotechnologies 7

contributions by Howard and Pusztai (Chapters 13 and 14). Clift takes his cue
from the influential 2004 report on nanotechnologies from the UK’s Royal
Society and Royal Academy of Engineering, which proposes treating engi-
neered nanoparticles as new chemicals. (Clift was a member of the working
group that produced the report.) This is a sound example of the kind of new
thinking that all stakeholders, including the public, needs to discuss. Clift
speaks of a possible ‘paradigm shift’, but also notes that at this time ‘No
systematic Life Cycle Assessment of representative nanotechnology products
or applications appears to have been reported’.
A close reading of the chapters by Howard and Pusztai would lead many to the
conclusion that such a LCA is of increasing urgency. Recognizing the paucity of
research studies into the possible toxic and other harmful effects of certain nano-
particles, they both show some courage in delineating what the hazards and risks,
on a precautionary basis, might be. Howard draws mainly on the existing literature
on the known harmful effects of ultra-fine particles of waste and combustion
processes (non-engineered nanoparticles) and asks us creatively and cautiously
to draw parallels with the possible passage of nanoparticles through the respira-
tory route. Pusztai speculates within the bounds of his scientific speciality
about possible ingestion routes for nanoparticles and the attendant risks on the
basis of previous and related findings in his field.
If Howard and Pusztai show us one thing it is that a precautionary approach
requires thinking laterally, analogically, holistically and making the connections
which the narrow view may miss. If it is not only acceptable, but welcome for
Feynman, Drexler and others to speculate about what science can do, should
do and what benefits it may bring, then it is surely also acceptable and welcome
for others to speculate about what science cannot do, should not do and what
risks it may bring. Pusztai is no stranger to controversy since his 1999 publication
in The Lancet on the relationship between GM potatoes and certain changes in the
gut wall of laboratory rats (Stanley and Pusztai, 1999; Horton, 1999). Let us see
whether a greater degree of maturity will be reflected by all stakeholders in the
case of forthcoming nanotechnology disagreements, with a willingness to respond
to new ideas and tentative findings with open-mindedness, subduing of sectarian
interests, and constructive suggestions and inquisitiveness. Situations of exag-
geration, demeaning misrepresentation, ‘whistleblowing’ and secrecy (Hunt,
1998) do not serve the ethical ends of nanotechnology’s potential service to
human welfare. The contributions of Howard and Pusztai at the very least raise
research questions of great relevance, and even suggest specific and independent
research programmes and testing protocols.

Public involvement and legal constraints

Open-mindedness and public involvement are in many ways the ethical keys to
the future of nanotechnology (Mehta, 2005). In Chapter 16 Barnett, Carr and
Clift observe that ‘trust – or more precisely, a lack of trust – is a core issue
around risk governance’. In the UK, for example, the fudged handling of the
8 Nanotechnology

crisis over bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and its relation to a new
variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (vCJD) in humans revealed a lack of
public accountability and undermined trust in food science and technology
(Hunt, 1996). Carr and colleagues consider how openness about uncertainty
and dialogue with the public over nanotechnology may rebuild public trust.
The early development of social tools for the sustainable development of
nanotechnologies could play a vital part in recuperating and re-generating
trust, as pointed out by Einsiedel and Goldenberg in Chapter 17. In a good
example of lateral thinking these contributors suggest that lessons can be
learned from the case of recombinant bovine somatotropine (rBST) to boost
milk production. The risk to human health was considered insignificant but
negative impacts on animal health were deemed important enough to reject
use of this hormone in Canada. One cannot generally predict what the public
will think about an emerging technology – one has to inform them, to ask
their views, listen to their questions and involve them, and as early as possible.
As Einsiedel and Goldenberg write, ‘Increasing public awareness and engaging
in public education initiatives are important tools but are self-defeating when
done with the sole intent of getting the public on board and on side.’
The law too, in relation to nanotechnology, will not be a detached area of
human endeavour, but will reflect the struggle between our inheritance and
our future. We may be witnessing in the legal arena in general a movement
of the boundary that exists between narrower interests (corporate, national)
and the general protection of human welfare towards the latter. At the heart
of the commercial and industrial pursuit of nanotechnologies is the patent, a
legal instrument now under considerable stress and strain, as Vaidhyanathan
shows us in Chapter 18. This contributor suggests that nanotechnology may
at last explode the inadequacies of the current system. The patenting of what
used to be regarded as ‘basic research’ and the overstretching of patenting
into such a fundamental level of knowledge and know-how may endanger
both socially beneficial nanotechnology and patenting as we know it. Vaidhya-
nathan suggests that ‘Perhaps there should be a global nanotechnology patent
database run through the United Nations’.
One example of the nanotechnological impacts, which will create new legal
and ethical concerns, is biomedical research. In Chapter 20 Sheremeta takes the
case of a Canadian quasi-legal instrument, concerning the ethical treatment of
research on human subjects, to illustrate these concerns. At the same time,
Sheremeta is among the first to address ethical concerns in relation to specific
nanomedical innovations.
In the gradual long-term shift towards law as a function of global welfare
protection, we may find that corporations, entrepreneurs, suppliers, govern-
ment agencies, and research bodies will have to expand their conception of
nanotechnology as a commercial entity to one that promotes sustainable
development and enhances human life on a global scale. In Chapter 19,
practising UK lawyer Hannah foreshadows the expanding margin of civil
liability, with reference to asbestosis, and in Chapter 21 Wells and Elias do
the same for corporate criminal liability. One area of interest is liability for
 Introduction: The Challenge of Nanotechnologies 9

harms to future generations. And as Wells and Elias point out, ‘events such as
pharmaceutical harms, environmental damage, transport disasters, and chemical
plant explosions have led to calls for those enterprises to be prosecuted for
manslaughter’. On the legal horizon, certainly no further away than the promises
of a nanotechnological revolution, are the prospects of holding businesses
accountable for human rights violations. We are not just moving into a new
technological world, but a new legal, ethical, economic, social, cultural and
political one too. Those who promote only the benefits of nanotechnology
might do well to remember this point.
In closing, nanotechnologies are already embedded in existing socio-
economic relations and are formed by them, and in a multiplicity of feedback
loops will also have their impact in changing those relations for or against a
sustainable future. Transdisciplinary thinking is vital, discomfiting as it will
be for those embedded in their separate expert discourses. We hope this
book makes a small start by pointing out some important directions for fresh
thinking and truly global ethical concern.

Notes
1 For popular introductions to the basics of nanotechnology, and its promises,
see Ratner, M. and Ratner, D. (2003) Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduc-
tion to the Next Big Idea, New Jersey, Pearson Education (Prentice Hall);
The Editors of Scientific American (2002) Understanding Nanotechnology,
New York, Warner Books; Mulhall, D. (2002) Our Molecular Future,
New York, Prometheus Books.
2 Centre for Responsible Nanotechnology (www.crnano.org/studies.htm),
led by Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder, proposes 30 essential nanotech-
nology studies, besides providing an overview of benefits and dangers of
molecular manufacturing.
3 For the precisely worded and detailed definition go to the classification on the
USPTO website at: www.uspto.gov/go/classification/uspc977/defs977.htm.
4 In terms of standard measurement the nanoscale is anything at or above 1nm
but less than 1mm (micron or micrometre or one millionth of a metre). One
nanometre (1nm) ¼ 1 billionth ¼ 0.000000001 metre (m) ¼ 10
9 m. See the
Appendix: Measurement scales and Glossary.

References
Drexler, K. E. (1986) Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology, New
York, Random House
Drexler, K. E. (1990) Engines of Creation, 2nd edition, New York, Random House
(Anchor), Afterword, pp240–242
Drexler, K. E. (1992) Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Compu-
tation, Chichester, Wiley
10 Nanotechnology

Feynman, R. P. (1959) ‘Plenty of room at the bottom’, www.its.caltech.edu/~feynman

Horton, R. (1999) ‘Genetically modified foods: absurd concern or welcome dialogue’,
The Lancet, vol 354 (9187), p1312
Hunt, G. (1998) ‘Whistleblowing’, in Chadwick, R. (ed) Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics,
California, Academic Press
Hunt, G. (1996) ‘Some ethical ground rules for BSE and other public health threats’,
Nursing Ethics, vol 3, no 3, pp263–265
Mehta, M. D. (2005) ‘Regulating biotechnology and nanotechnology in Canada: A post-
normal science approach for inclusion of the fourth helix’, International Journal of
Contemporary Sociology, vol 42, no 1, pp107–120
Mehta, M. D. (2002) ‘Nanoscience and nanotechnology: Assessing the nature of
innovation in these fields’, Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, vol 22, no 4,
pp269–273
Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering (2004) Nanoscience and Nano-
technologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties. London, The Royal Society and
The Royal Academy of Engineering
Stanley, W. B. and Pusztai, A. (1999) ‘Effects of diets containing genetically modified
potatoes expressing Galanthis rivalis lectin on rat small intestine’, The Lancet,
vol 354, no 9187, p1353
 Part One
Introducing Nanotechnology
 2

Nanotechnology:
From ‘Wow’ to ‘Yuck’?

Kristen Kulinowski

Nanotechnology is science and engineering resulting from the manipulation of

matter’s most basic building blocks: atoms and molecules. As such, nano-
technology promises unprecedented control over both the materials we use
and the means of their production. Such control could revolutionize nearly
every sector of our economy, including medicine, defence and energy. Despite
the relatively recent emergence of this field, it already enjoys generous
federal funding and enthusiastic media coverage. The tenor of discourse on
nanotechnology is changing, however, as the voices of critics begin to sound
about a host of concerns ranging from the societal impacts of improving
human performance to the spectre of environmental devastation and human
disease.

Introduction
If one were to ask people at random to identify the most pressing present and
future global challenges with potential technological fixes, the list might
include cheap and clean energy, increased demand for potable water, reduced
environmental pollution, near-term expiration of Moore’s Law of computing
power (an impending crisis for Silicon Valley, anyway), world hunger, national
security and cures for diseases such as cancer.
Ask those same people what nanotechnology is and you are likely to get
one of two responses: ‘Huh?’ (by far the most common) or ‘I think it has
something to do with tiny little machines that . . . uh . . . swim through your
body and fix things?’ (Foresight and Governance Project, 2003). This is
likely to change in the next few years, because only one field of technical
research promises to develop solutions for all the aforementioned challenges.
That field is nanotechnology.
14 Nanotechnology

This might sound like the kind of breathless pronouncement that seems
to trumpet the arrival of every new technology. Surely, the news can’t be
that good. And how often has yesterday’s ‘best thing since sliced bread’
turned into today’s Superfund site (Environmental Protection Agency,
2003)? Emergent technologies often attract the attention of both hypesters
and fear-mongers. For example, genetically modified (GM) foods are both
hailed as the solution to world hunger and assailed as destroyers of the natural
order. Depending on your perspective, gene therapies will either cure intract-
able hereditary diseases such as haemophilia and Huntington’s disease or will
allow modern Dr Frankensteins to create a new race of superhumans. Nano-
technology is no different in this regard to its predecessors; it will either end
material need or end the reign of humanity on Earth. Given this potential
impact on society, and the growing public debate over nanotechnology’s bene-
fits and risks, both scientists and the public alike should have at least a passing
understanding of what nanotechnology is. This young field can also serve as an
illustrative example of how society grapples with any emergent technology,
including those yet to come.
The ‘nano’ in nanotechnology comes from the Greek word nanos, which
means dwarf. Scientists use this prefix to indicate 10
9 or one billionth.
Thus a nanosecond is one billionth of one second; a nanometre (nm) is one
billionth of one metre, and so on. Objects that can be classified as having some-
thing to do with nanotechnology are larger than atoms but much smaller than
we can perceive directly with our senses. One way to look at this size scale is that
one nanometre is about 100,000 times smaller than the diameter of a single
human hair. The following figure may also help to put this size scale in context.
Why a particular size scale should be the basis for so much federal funding,
research activity and media attention will become apparent soon.
The concept of controlling matter at the atomic level – which is at the heart
of nanotechnology’s promise – was first publicly articulated in 1959 by physi-
cist Richard Feynman in a speech given at Caltech entitled, ‘There’s Plenty of
Room at the Bottom’ (Feynman, 1959). Despite this history, it isn’t too
surprising that nanotechnology is not yet a household word given that it has
only been around in the research lab for the past 15 years or so. While the
term ‘nanotechnology’ was coined in 1974 by Japanese researcher Norio
Taniguchi to refer to engineering at length scales less than a micrometre,
futurist K. Eric Drexler is widely credited with popularizing the term in the
mainstream. In his 1986 book, Engines of Creation, Drexler envisioned a
world in which tiny machines or ‘assemblers’ are able to build other structures

Mountain Child Ant Bacterium Sugar molecule

(45 atoms)

1 kilometre 1 metre 1 millimetre 1 micrometre 1 nanometre

(1000m) (1m) (0.001m) (0.000001m) (0.000000001m)
Figure 2.1 Objects of approximate size from 103 m to 10
9 m
 Nanotechnology: From ‘Wow’ to ‘Yuck’? 15

with exquisite precision by physically manipulating individual atoms (Drexler,

1986). If such control were technically achievable, then atom by atom construc-
tion of larger objects would be a whole new way of making materials and could
usher in a second Industrial Revolution with even more profound societal
impacts than the first one.
Until recently, nanotechnology remained the province of futurists and
visionaries because researchers lacked even rudimentary tools to observe
and manipulate individual atoms. This changed in the early 1980s with the
invention by International Business Machines (IBM) researchers of a new
tool called scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) that allowed one not only
to ‘see’ individual atoms but to push them around, albeit painstakingly.1 The
potential value and importance of this new tool were immediately recognized
and earned its inventors the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics (Nobel Foundation).
This technique and others that followed shortly thereafter allowed nanotech-
nology to move forward at a greatly accelerated pace. Within a few years, the
field had built up enough momentum to attract the Federal Government’s
attention.
On 21 January 2000, President Clinton chose Caltech – the site of the
historic Feynman speech – as the venue to announce the creation of the
National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), a coordinated Federal programme
to fund nanotechnology research and development:

My budget supports a major new National Nanotechnology Initiative, worth

US$500 million. . . Imagine the possibilities: materials with ten times the
strength of steel and only a small fraction of the weight – shrinking all the
information housed at the Library of Congress into a device the size of a
sugar cube – detecting cancerous tumors when they are only a few cells in size.
Some of our research goals may take 20 or more years to achieve, but that is
precisely why there is an important role for the federal government. (Clinton,
2000)

The creation and generous funding of the NNI signalled a serious and long
term commitment by the Federal Government to this new area of discovery.
This commitment continues in the current administration: President Bush’s
Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 budget request funds the NNI at a whopping US$847
million (FY 2004 Budget Request). This massive investment is justified by
pointing towards the positive benefits society will reap through nanotech-
nology. These are posited as a set of ‘Grand Challenges’ that, if realized,
‘could provide major broad based economic benefits to the United States as
well as improve the quality of life for its citizens dramatically’. These potential
benefits include (National Science and Technology Council, 2000):

. containing the entire contents of the Library of Congress in a device the size
of a sugar cube;
. making materials and products from the bottom up, that is, by building them
up from atoms and molecules. Bottom up manufacturing should require less
material and create less pollution;
16 Nanotechnology

. developing materials that are ten times stronger than steel, but a fraction of
the weight for making all kinds of land, sea, air and space vehicles lighter and
more fuel efficient;
. improving the computer speed and efficiency of minuscule transistors and
memory chips by factors of millions making today’s Pentium IIIs seem slow;
. detecting cancerous tumours that are only a few cells in size using nano-
engineered contrast agents;
. removing the finest contaminants from water and air, promoting a cleaner
environment and potable water at an affordable cost;
. Doubling the energy efficiency of solar cells.

A little bit of science

To better understand how nanotechnology could revolutionize such diverse
areas as, say, medicine and computing, we need to review a bit of fundamental
physics. Two sets of theories relate to this discussion: classical mechanics,
which governs the world of our direct perception (apple falling from tree to
hit Newton on the head) and quantum mechanics, which governs the world
of atoms and molecules (electrons tunnelling through seemingly impenetrable
barriers). Given enough information about the initial position of an object and
the forces acting upon it, classical mechanics allows one to determine with
certainty where that object was at some time in the past and where it will be
at some time in the future. This is useful because it allows one to, for example,
track a baseball from the crack of the bat to where it will drop in centre field or
to successfully sink the eight ball with a bank shot off the side wall of a pool
table (at least in theory). Quantum mechanics does not provide such comforting
predictability but does a far better job explaining the strange behaviour of
atoms and molecules and allows us to make (at best) probabilistic assessments
of where an electron is and what it might do if we poke it with a light probe. The
classical world and the quantum world seem miles apart. However, as we move
along the scale in Figure 2.1 from the large to the small, the classical rules even-
tually give way to the quantum rules. The murky, middle ground in between
the two domains is the province of nanotechnology.
In this transitional regime, a material often exhibits different behaviour
than it does either in the bulk, where it is governed by classical mechanics, or
as a single atom, where quantum mechanics dominates. To demonstrate the
changes that occur to a material when it is ‘nano-ized’ let’s consider the element
gold (Ratner and Ratner, 2003). We are familiar with gold as a shiny yellow
metal that can be worked into a variety of shapes for our adornment. If you
cut a piece of gold in half, each of the halves retains the properties of the
whole, except that each piece has half the mass and half the volume of the
original. (And even these sum to the mass and volume of the original uncut
piece.) Cut each half in half again and anyone would still recognize the pieces
as gold. And so on. You can keep doing this down to a certain size and then
the properties of the pieces begin to change. One of these may be the apparent
 Nanotechnology: From ‘Wow’ to ‘Yuck’? 17

colour of the material. When gold is nanoscopic, that is, clusters of gold atoms
measuring 1nm across, the particles appear red.2 And if we change the size of
the clusters just a little bit, their colour changes yet again. That is only one
example of a material behaving according to scaling laws, that is, a smooth vari-
ation in a property that scales with the size of the object. Most of this variability
doesn’t begin to manifest until you get to the nanoscopic level. Therefore, if we
can control the processes that make a nanoscopic material, then we can control
the material’s properties. Chemists have long been able to design materials with
useful properties (for example polymers); what’s new is the unprecedented
degree of control over materials at the molecular level. This may not capture
the imagination as much as a tiny machine that precisely assembles materials
atom by atom, but it is an extraordinarily interesting and useful phenomenon
and is, ultimately, why nanotechnology is causing such a fuss.

Present and future applications of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is expected to have a significant impact on just about every
sector of the economy through the use of nanostructured materials in medicine,
the production of clean energy and reduction in energy consumption, the crea-
tion of nanoscopic sensors, new materials for optics and photonics, and ultra
small magnets, the development of new techniques for the fabrication of
large-scale structures, the replacement of silicon based technology for electro-
nics and computing, and the enhancement of consumer products. A few of the
many applications will be highlighted within; for a more thorough review the
reader is directed to two published surveys of nanotechnology (Wilson et al,
2002; Ratner and Ratner, 2003).

Consumer products
While much of nanotechnology’s potential has yet to be realized, products that
incorporate nanomaterials are already in the marketplace. The Wilson Double
CoreTM tennis ball, the official ball of the Davis Cup tournament, has clay
nanoparticles embedded in the polymer lining of its inner wall, which slows
the escape of air from the ball making it last twice as long. Nano-CareTM
fabrics, sold in Eddie Bauer chinos and other clothing since November 2001,
incorporate ‘nano-whiskers’ into the fabric to make it stain resistant to water-
based liquids such as coffee and wine. PPG Industries produces SunCleanTM
self cleaning glass, which harnesses the sun’s energy to break down dirt and
spreads water smoothly over the surface to rinse the dirt away without beading
or streaking. Various sunscreens (Wild Child, Wet Dreams and Bare Zone)
incorporate ZinClearTM , a transparent suspension of nanoscopic zinc oxide
particles that are too small to scatter visible light as do products containing
microscopic particles. Nanotechnology has added value to these products
through a variety of properties – impermeability to gas, water repellency and
transparency – that manifest only or optimally at the nanoscale.
18 Nanotechnology

Military applications
Nanotechnology would probably not be worth US$847 million of federal
funding if it only made incremental improvements in consumer products.
Many of the high impact applications are in the areas of defence/national
security, medicine and energy. In FY 2003, the Department of Defense
(DOD) surpassed all other Federal agencies with a US$243 million investment
in nanotechnology research and development (FY 2003 Budget Request).3
DOD is interested in using nanotechnology to advance both offensive and
defensive military objectives. DOD’s primary areas of interest are information
acquisition, processing, storage and display (nanoelectronics); materials
performance and affordability (nanomaterials); and chemical and biological
warfare defence (nanosensors). The integration of several of these functional-
ities into a single technology is the ultimate goal of the Institute for Soldier
Nanotechnologies, an interdepartmental research centre established in 2002
by the US Army at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its website
says:
Imagine a bullet proof jumpsuit, no thicker than spandex that monitors health,
eases injuries, communicates automatically, and maybe even lends superhuman
abilities. It’s a long range vision for how technology can make soldiers less
vulnerable to enemy and environmental threats.

The ultimate objective of this five-year, US$50 million effort is to create a

battle-suit that better protects the soldier in the battlefield.

Medical applications
No one has yet invented a little machine that will swim through your body and
mechanically strip away plaque from your inner arterial walls; nonetheless,
nanotechnology is poised to have an enormous impact on the diagnosis and
treatment of disease. Recall that one of the Grand Challenges of the NNI is
the ability to detect cancerous tumours that are only a few cells in size. Medical
imaging could be vastly improved by using nanoparticle-based materials to
enhance the optical contrast between healthy tissue and diseased tissue.
Diabetes treatment could be improved by injecting a nanoparticle into the
blood that automatically delivered a dose of insulin upon sensing an imbalance
in blood glucose level. Cancer may be treated someday soon with an injection of
nanoparticles that latch onto cancerous tissue and cook it to death upon external
application of a light source that poses no threat to healthy tissue.

Controversies: the ‘wow’ to ‘yuck’ trajectory

That’s the good news. New developments in technology usually start out
with strong public support, as the potential benefits to the economy, human
health or quality of life are touted.4 Let us call this the ‘wow index’. Genetic
 Nanotechnology: From ‘Wow’ to ‘Yuck’? 19

engineering promised a revolution in medical care, including the ability to cure

or prevent diseases with a genetic basis such as Huntington’s disease, haemo-
philia, cystic fibrosis and some breast cancers. Manipulation of plant genomes
promised a revolution in how food is produced, by engineering crops with
increased yield, nutritional content and shelf life. At present, nanotechnology
has a very high wow index. For the past decade, nanotechnologists have
wowed the public with our ability to manipulate matter at the atomic level
and with grand visions of how we might use this ability. The good news has
given nanotechnology a strong start with extraordinary levels of focused
government funding, which is starting to reap tangible benefits to society.
Any technology that promises so much change is bound to generate contro-
versy, because with such awesome power comes the capacity to push beyond
boundaries that society has deemed acceptable. Put another way, societal and
ethical concerns can rapidly turn ‘wow!’ into ‘yuck’. These concerns are
often centered on fundamental moral and social perceptions of the nature of
the human as well as humanity’s relationship with the natural world. The
proponents of the NNI were not insensitive to the possibility that nanotech-
nology could push some of these buttons. In September 2000, the National
Science Foundation organized a workshop on societal implications of nano-
technology. The report from this workshop incorporates the viewpoints of a
diverse group of people from government, academia and industry on subjects
ranging from public involvement in decision making, education of future nano-
technologists, economics, politics, medicine and national security (Roco and
Bainbridge, 2001).
The debates surrounding many of the emergent technologies that preceded
nanotechnology can help us predict a likely trajectory for the controversy
surrounding this new field. One such example is provided by the debate over
GM foods. The genetic manipulation of crops grown for human consumption
spawned a host of ethical concerns about the advisability of tinkering with the
natural order. A perusal of anti-GM literature reveals a profound discomfort
with human attempts to outsmart Mother Nature by incorporating genetic
material from one species into another. The greater the difference of these
species in the natural world, the more profound seems to be the anxiety over
their mixing. Thus, incorporation of a cold-water fish gene into a tomato to
increase the fruit’s resistance to frost damage is higher on the ‘yuck index’
than incorporation of genetic material from one species of plant into another.
The public backlash against GM foods, which detractors labelled ‘Franken-
foods’, crippled the industry, especially in Europe, and ultimately cost billions
in lost global revenues. In a sense, this industry went from ‘wow’ to ‘yuck’ to
nearly ‘bankrupt’.
Nanotechnology’s ‘yuck index’ is rising in part because of the recent
publication of Michael Crichton’s novel Prey (Crichton, 2002). The author
of Jurassic Park (Crichton, 1990) and other techno-horror stories describes a
chilling scenario in which swarms of nano-robots – equipped with memory,
solar power generators, and powerful software – begin preying on living
creatures and reproducing. Like the fictive dinosaurs of Crichton’s earlier
20 Nanotechnology

work, the nanobots surprise and overwhelm their creators when they rapidly
evolve beyond the scientists’ capacity to predict or control them. Or, in the
words of Prey’s protagonist, ‘Things never turn out the way you think they
will.’ In the introduction to the book Crichton credits Eric Drexler’s ‘grey
goo’ scenario with inspiring the premise of his story. In brief, the grey goo
scenario is the destruction of humankind by ‘omnivorous’ nanomachines that
‘spread like blowing pollen, replicate swiftly, and reduce the biosphere to
dust in a matter of days’ (Drexler, 1986). This fear was echoed in an influential
essay entitled, ‘Why the future doesn’t need us’, in which Sun Microsystems
chief executive officer (CEO) Bill Joy warns that the convergence of nanotech-
nology, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology could pose a mortal threat to
humanity (Joy, 2000).
The concept of convergence, or the synergistic combination of multiple tech-
nologies, is of growing interest to government funding agencies and researchers
who seek to leverage the capabilities of each field to achieve something greater
than what each could do on its own. Within the science and technology commu-
nity, convergence is generally understood these days to involve some combination
of nanoscience, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science
(NBIC). Convergence is relevant to this discussion not because nanoscience is
one of the fields in the acronym but because the nanoscale is the regime within
which convergent technologies will operate. A joint National Science Founda-
tion/Department of Energy report explains the fundamental concept:

Convergence of diverse technologies is based on material unity at the nanoscale

and on technology integration from that scale. . . Revolutionary advances at the
interfaces between previously separate fields of science and technology are ready
to create key transforming tools for NBIC technologies. Developments in
systems approaches, mathematics and computation in conjunction with NBIC
allow us for the first time to understand the natural world, human society,
and scientific research as closely coupled complex, hierarchical systems.
(NSF/DOE, 2002)

This particular report explores the potential impact of convergent technologies

on human performance enhancement, including ‘highly effective communica-
tion techniques including brain to brain interaction, perfecting human machine
interfaces including neuromorphic engineering, . . . [and] enhancing human
capabilities for defence purposes.’ Wow. Or, yuck. It is hard to remain neutral
about such claims. Whether these outcomes are perceived to be beneficial or
detrimental is very much dependent on one’s perspective. In seeking to blur
the boundaries between human and machine, it was perhaps inevitable that
NBIC convergence would push the buttons of some of the same people who
are uncomfortable with the blurring of human–animal (pig liver transplants
into humans) and animal–plant (fish gene in tomato) boundaries.
One such group is a small but vocal organization known as the ETC Group:
the Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration. Formerly
known as the Rural Advancement Foundation International, the ETC Group
says on its website that it is,
 Nanotechnology: From ‘Wow’ to ‘Yuck’? 21

. . . dedicated to the conservation and sustainable advancement of cultural

and ecological diversity and human rights. To this end, ETC group supports
socially responsible developments of technologies useful to the poor and
marginalized and it addresses international governance issues and corporate
power.
Its technology interests include biotechnology, biological warfare and human
genomics with a special emphasis on genetically modified organisms such as
the so-called Terminator seed. This Monsanto product is engineered to
produce sterile plants, thus ensuring yearly repeat sales to farmers who
would otherwise harvest the fertile seeds for subsequent plantings. ETC
Group’s interest in nanotechnology dates back to early 2001 with the publica-
tion of a report that lays out the perils of advancing technologies such as
biotechnology and nanotechnology. The objections of this group to emerging
technologies seem to be based less in concerns about technology gone awry,
for example the grey goo scenario, than in the technologies’ capacity to increase
the gap between rich and poor, and developed and developing nations, through
control over the means of production and distribution of the technologies
(Mooney, 2001). This type of criticism is not levelled exclusively at nanotech-
nology but seems broadly applicable to any new technology.
Members of the ETC Group are not the only ones whose criticism of nano-
technology is more social than technical. Gregor Wolbring, a research scientist
at the University of Calgary, founder of the International Network on Bioethics
and Disability and self-proclaimed ‘thalidomider’, critiques technologies that
aim to enhance human performance or remediate or prevent disabilities. He
envisions a scenario in which nanotechnology could be used not only to further
marginalize the disabled but to coerce the healthy into improving themselves
and their offspring (Wolbring, 2002). This outcome could be dubbed the
‘nano-GATTACA’ scenario, after the 1997 film,5 which is set in a future
where genetic engineering allows all children to be born with physical and
mental enhancements. In the film, a two-tier society results in which the geneti-
cally enhanced oppress those non-elite people whose rebellious parents have
chosen to produce them the ‘natural’ way (Niccol, 1997). Wolbring warns
that nanotechnology has the same capacity as genetic engineering to be misused
as a potential instrument of coercion. Michael Mehta, a sociology professor at
the University of Saskatchewan, is concerned about the failure of the ‘triple
helix’ of State, university and industry to include the fourth helix, the
public, when making decisions about the regulation of emergent technologies
such as nanotechnology and biotechnology (Mehta, 2005). Mehta is also
concerned about the prospect of ‘nano-panopticism’, or a world in which all
citizens are subject to gross invasions of privacy through the misuse of nano-
scopic surveillance technology, increased computing power and storage, and
lab-on-a-nanochip technology for acquiring genetic information without
knowledge or consent (Mehta, 2002).6
Not all potential impacts of nanotechnology will be social in nature. The
technology is, after all, based on the production and use of materials. As
such, issues of environmental and toxicological effects must also be addressed.
22 Nanotechnology

History is replete with examples of technologies or materials that were

enthusiastically embraced by society, and then found years later to cause
environmental contamination or disease. The chemical dichloro-diphenyl-
trichloroethane (DDT) killed disease bearing mosquitoes, thus allowing areas
with tropical and sub tropical climates to be more safely populated and
developed, yet was ultimately banned in the US after it was linked to destruc-
tion of animal life. Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)-based refrigerants allowed for
affordable air conditioning, yet were ultimately banned after they were linked
to destruction of the ozone hole. Asbestos was used as a fire retardant and
insulator in many buildings until it was found to cause a deadly lung disease.
Some materials, such as semiconductors, are not in themselves known to be
harmful but are produced though environmentally burdensome processes.
Nanotechnology has tremendous potential to improve human health and
the environment; however, it could also have unintended impacts. The ability
of nanoparticles ability to penetrate into living cells could be exploited to
produce a new drug, or it could result in toxicity. Nanomaterials could be
used to produce cheap, energy efficient filters that improve drinking water
quality, or they could become environmental contaminants. Given the breadth
of materials and devices that fall under the broad umbrella of nanotechnology,
all of these outcomes may result to one extent or another. Despite the massive
amount of money that supports nanotechnology research and development, for
example the development of new applications, little research has been done on
potential implications. The National Science Foundation signalled its support
of implications research in 2001 by funding the Center for Biological and
Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) at Rice University, whose mission
is to develop sustainable nanotechnologies that improve human health and
the environment. CBEN’s research portfolio includes basic research and
applications development in addition to implications research. Other agencies
and companies interested in incorporating nanomaterials into new products
have also begun to study the health effects and data should start to appear in
the technical literature within the next year. The Environmental Protection
Agency’s 2003 request for proposals on ‘Impacts of Manufactured Nano-
materials on Human Health and the Environment’ will accelerate the collection
and analysis of health and environmental impact data (Environmental Protec-
tion Agency).

Summary
As nanotechnology’s ‘yuck’ factor continues to rise, one would expect more
implications research to be funded, if only to address the concerns of the
public. The technical community is beginning to realize that public acceptance
of nanotechnology is vital to the continued support of their work and that they
ignore public concerns at their own peril. No nanotechnologist wants the field
to go the way of GM foods, which are largely viewed as the poster child of
misguided public policy. With sound technical data about the health and
 Nanotechnology: From ‘Wow’ to ‘Yuck’? 23

environmental impacts of nanomaterials and a commitment to open dialogue

about potential social and ethical implications with all stakeholders, nano-
technology could avoid travelling along the wow-to-yuck trajectory.

Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges Professor Vicki Colvin, Dr Kevin Ausman and the
Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology. This work was
partly supported by Nanoscale Science and Engineering Initiative of the
National Science Foundation under NSF Award Number EEC-0118007.

Notes
1 Technically, the STM and its offspring are not true microscopes in that
they do not directly image objects. Rather they convert into images the
variations in properties such as electric field, magnetism and force that
are measured across a surface by a probe tip.
2 A single gold nanoparticle cannot be seen with the unaided eye but a spec-
trophotometer can be used to measure its ‘redness’.
3 The National Science Foundation, which funds a broader research port-
folio, was a close second with US$221million. In FY 2004, NSF requested
US$247 million to DOD’s US$222 million.
4 Portions of this section are taken from the text of Professor Vicki L.
Colvin’s testimony before the US House of Representatives Committee
on Science, which held a hearing on societal and ethical implications of
nanotechnology on 9 April 2003. This testimony was co-written by Kristen
Kulinowski and Vicki Colvin.
5 The name of the fictive Gattaca corporation, the primary setting of the film,
is composed solely of letters used to label the nucleotide bases of DNA:
guanine, adenine, cytosine and thymine.
6 This is also reminiscent of a scene in Gattaca, in which a woman surrepti-
tiously gathers skin cells sloughed off by her lover to determine by genetic
analysis whether he would be a good mate.

References
Clinton, W. J. (2000) Presidential address at the California Institute of Technology,
20 January 2000, www.columbia.edu/cu/osi/nanopotusspeech.html
Crichton, M. (1990) Jurassic Park, New York, Knopf
Crichton, M. (2002) Prey, New York, HarperCollins
Drexler, K. E. (1986) Engines of Creation, New York, Anchor
Environmental Protection Agency http://es.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/current/2003_nano.html
Feynman, R. P. (1959) ‘There’s plenty of room at the bottom’, www.its.caltech.edu/
~feynman/plenty.html
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 Gli scherzi allora, il conversar, le risa
Scoppiettavan graditi in mezzo a loro;
Però che onor l’agreste musa avesse.

22.

Non per colpa s’immola a Bacco il capro

Sovra l’are dovunque e i ludi antichi
Sulle scene compajono, solenni
Della Tesea città [23] gli abitatori
Immaginaron premj intorno ai grandi
Popolosi villaggi e nelle vie,
E fra le colme coppe in su gli erbosi
Prati danzâr fra l’untüose pelli
Degli immolati capri. Istessamente
Gli Ausonj pur dalla trojana gente
Qui derivati con incolto verso
E irrefrenato riso han passatempo
E di cave corteccie orrendi visi
Assumono, e ne’ loro allegri carmi
Te invocan, Bacco, e sul gigante pino
Ti sospendon votive immaginette.
Mia traduzione.

23. Gli Ateniesi sono così dal Poeta chiamati Thesidæ da Teseo re, che
primo ridusse dagli sparsi villaggi entro la città che circondò di mura.

24. «I primi ludi teatrali nacquero dalle feste di Bacco.»

25.

Grecia già doma il vincitor feroce

Giunse a domar, e nell’agreste Lazio
L’arti guidò per man; indi quell’irto
Cadde saturnio ritmo, e fu respinto
Dal fior d’ogni eleganza il grave lezzo.
Ma rimasero ancor lungh’anni, e ancora
Rimangon oggi le salvatich’orme
Chè tardo acuti su le greche carte
Sguardi volse il Roman, e alfin deposte
Le punich’arme, cominciò tranquillo
Quella ad investigar, ch’Eschilo e Tespi
E Sofocle apprestava util dottrina.
Trad. Gargallo.
26. Storia degli Italiani, Vol. I, cap. XXXI.

27.

Ma però se grecizza il mio subbietto,

Non atticizza, ma piuttosto in vero
Sicilizza.

28.

Che d’altri personaggi ora non lice

Valersi, e ch’altro scriver si costuma
Che di schiavi correnti e di pietose
Matrone o di malvagie cortigiane,
Di parassito crapulon, ovvero
Di spavaldo soldato e di supposto
Fanciullo; o pur da vecchio servitore
Venir tradito; amare, odiar, gelosi
Restar in scena? Oh! nulla cosa insomma
Scriver si può che non sia stato scritto.
Mia trad.

29.

Molti incerti restar abbiam veduto

Cui conceder di comico poeta
La palma; a te, col mio giudizio adesso
Il dubbio solverò, sì che tu possa
Altra sentenza rigettar contraria.
Prima a Cecilio Stazio io la concedo,
Plauto di poi ogn’altro certo avvanza;
Quindi l’ardito Nevio ha il terzo posto;
E se il quarto, ad alcun dar lo si deve,
A Licinio è dovuto, ed a lui presso
Attilio viene; il sesto loco ottiene
Publio Terenzio, e il settimo Turpilio;
Ha Trabëa l’ottavo e il nono a Luscio
Giustamente si dee; Ennio, in ragione
Solo di vetustà, decimo venga.
Tr. id.

30. Traduco:

Vi avran di quei che mi diran: che è questo

 Matrimonio di schiavi? E quando mai
Torran moglie gli schiavi? Ecco una cosa
Strana così che in nessun luogo è vista.
Ma io v’accerto che ciò s’usa in Grecia,
A Cartagin, qui nella terra nostra,
In Apulia, ove più che i cittadini
Soglion gli schiavi andar tra loro a nozze.

31.

Tutto ciò che piace

Potè ai mimi concedere la scena.
Lib. 2.

32. Apologia. XV.

33. «Il capo e la faccia coperti colla maschera.»

34. Le Maschere Sceniche e le Figure Comiche d’antichi Romani descritte

brevemente da Francesco De Ficoroni. — Roma. Nella stamperia dei
Bernabò e Lazzarini MDCCXLVIII. I versi di Fedro così tradurrei:

Gli occhi in maschera tragica

Un dì la volpe affisse;
Oh quanto è bella, disse,
Ma ahimè! cervel non ha.

35. Se taluno avrà cantato innanzi al popolo, o avrà fatto carme che rechi
infamia o offesa altrui, venga punito di bastone.

36.

Fescennina licenza, a cui ben questo

Costume aprì la via, con versi alterni
Rustici prese a dardeggiar motteggi,
E omai l’ammessa libertà, cogli anni
Rinnovandosi ognor, piacevolmente
Folleggiò, sinchè poi l’inferocito
Scherzo scosso ogni fren, cangiato in rabbia,
Già minaccioso gli onorati Lari
Impunemente penetrare ardio.
Quei che sentiro i sanguinosi morsi,
Muggir di duolo, e quegli ancor non tocchi
Su la sorte comun stetter pensosi:
 Ch’anzi legge e castigo allor fu imposto,
Perchè descritto in petulanti versi
Alcun non fosse. Ecco littor temuto
Cangiar fe’ metro, e sol diletto e lode
Ormai risuona su le aonie corde.
Trad. Gargallo.

37.

Magno tu sei per la miseria nostra....

E di codesta tua virtute alfine
Giorno verrà che te’ n dorrai tu forte,
Se legge non l’infrena, oppur costume.

38. Ad Atticum, II, 19.

39.

Quiriti, ahimè, la libertà perdemmo.

40.

È da fatal necessità voluto

Che i molti tema chi è da lor temuto.

41. «E che? colui che soccorse la Republica, la sostenne e rassodò tra gli
Argivi.... dubbia l’impresa, non dubitò però espor la sua vita, nè curarsi
del capo suo.... d’animo sommo in somma guerra e di sommo ingegno
adornato.... o Padre! queste cose vidi io ardere. O ingrati Argivi, o Greci
inconseguenti, immemori del beneficio!... Lo lasciate esulare, lo lasciate
espellere, ed espulso, il sopportate.»

42.

Io son Talia, che a’ comici presiede

Poemi e il vizio sferza
Per genial via di teatrali scede.

43.

Nè la nostra Talia dentro le selve

Vergognò soggiornar.

44. Tom. II. pl. 3 nella nota 7. Vedi anche Plutarco Simp. IX 14.
45.

Di Melpomene aver l’ignoto carme

Tespi inventato, è fama, e aver su plaustri
Tratti gli attor, di feccia il volto intrisi,
Che adattassero al carme il gesto e il canto.
Trad. Gargallo.

46. Costui è quell’Eraclide, che Diogene Laerzio e Suida dicono essere

stato uomo grave, cantore di opere ottime ed elegantissime, e liberatore
della sua patria oppressa, emulo di Platone, che nel partire per la Sicilia
lo incaricò di presiedere alla sua scuola. Egli ne’ frammenti dell’opera
Delle Republiche, ci lasciò testimonianza che Omero sè dicesse, in un
componimento andato perduto, di patria toscano: Omero attesta dalla
Tirrenia esser egli venuto in Cefallenia ed Itaca, ove per malattia perdè
la vista, onde il nostro Manzoni il chiamasse:

«Cieco d’occhi, divin raggio di mente.»

47.

Chi per vil capro in tragico certame

Pria gareggiò.
Trad. Gargallo.

48.

Vien la truce Tragedia a grande passo,

Torva la fronte d’arruffata chioma
E il lungo peplo che le casca in basso.
Ovid., 3. Amor. I. II. Mia trad.

49.

De la maschera autor, e del decente

Sirma, appo lui Eschilo il palco stese
Su poche travi, e ad innalzar lo stile,
E a poggiar sul coturno ei fu maestro.
Trad. Gargallo.

50. Chi poi abbia introdotto le maschere, i prologhi, la moltitudine degli attori
ed altrettali cose, si ignora. — Della Poetica, cap. V.

51.
 Se dì solenne a festeggiar talvolta,
D’erbe un teatro si compone e nota
Una commedia [52] recitar si ascolta,
In cui l’attor pallida al volto e immota
Maschera tien dalla beante bocca,
Il bimbo, di terror pinta la gota,
Nel sen materno si nasconde.

52. Ho tradotto la parola exodium per Commedia; ma l’exodium era

propriamente una farsa licenziosa che d’ordinario si rappresentava in
seguito ad una tragedia e più spesso ancora in seguito ad un’atellana,
qualche volta pure tra un atto e l’altro di quest’ultima. Il più delle volte
l’esodio non aveva che un solo attore, chiamato per ciò exodiarus.

53. «Laddove un oratore convien che abbia l’acutezza de’ dialetti e i

sentimenti de’ filosofi e quasi il parlar de’ poeti, e la memoria de’ giuristi
e la voce de’ tragici e poco meno che il gesto de’ più applauditi attori di
teatro.» — Cicerone, De Oratore, lib. I, c. XXVIII, Trad. di Gius. Ant.
Cantova.

54.

Queste son l’opre e queste l’arti invero

Del generoso prence: ei s’abbandona
A oscene danze su palco straniero;
Beato allor che la nemea corona
D’appio mertò [55]. Del tuo trillo sonante
Alle immagin’ degli avi i trofei dona;
E di Domizio al più la trascinante
Sirma di Tieste o Antigone e la cetra
A quel gran marmo tu deponi innante.
Mia trad.

55. Plinio, Nat. Hist. lib. 19. 5. 46, fa sapere che ne’ grandi spettacoli della
Grecia Nemea venisse data al vincitore una corona di appio, erba
palustre, detta anche, helioselinum.

56. Egloga VIII. 10.

Che sol del sofocleo coturno degni

Sono i tuoi carmi.

57. Lib. VII. 2.

58. Hist. Nat. 35. 12. 46.

59. Id. 57. 2. 6.

60. Saturnaliorum. Lib. III. C. XIV.

61.

Mentre il tosco tibicine strimpella

Muove il ludio il suo piè a grottesca danza.
V. 112. Mia trad.

62.

Non grave d’oricalco e de la tromba

Qual oggi è omai, la tibia emulatrice,
Ma semplice e sottil per pochi fori
Spirando, al coro utile accordo univa,
E del suo fiato empiea gli ancor non troppo
Spesso sedili.
Tr. Gargallo.

63. Flacco di Claudio suonò colle tibie pari.

64. «Il Tibicine intanto or vi diverta.»

65. «Non comprendo di che abbia egli a temere, da che sì bei settenari egli
reciti al suono della tibia.»

66. Lo Scoliaste d’Apollonio, Argonaut. III V. I., e lo Scoliaste dell’Antologia,

lib. I. cap. 57.

67.

Co’ suoi tragici giambi reboante

S’accalora Melpomene.

68. Martorio Primo, liberto di Marco, architetto.

69.

E del nudo teatro e del coperto

Il gemino edificio.
70. Lib. II. c. 45. 6. «Quinto Catulo, imitando l’effeminatezza della
Campania, primo coprì dell’ombra del velario gli spettatori.»

71. Cap. XXVI.

72.

«Sederò teco al pompejan teatro,

Quando il vento contende
Di spiegar sovra al popolo le tende.»
Lib. XVI. 29. Trad. di Magenta.

73.

Sovente ancora
Il medesmo color diffuso intorno
È dal sommo de’ corpi; e l’aureo velo,
E le purpuree e le sanguigne spesso
Ciò fanno, allor che ne’ teatri augusti
Son tese, o sventolando in su l’antenne
Ondeggian fra le travi: ivi il consesso
Degli ascoltanti; ivi la scena e tutte
Le immagini de’ padri e delle madri
E degli dei di color vario ornate
Veggonsi fluttuare, e quanto più
Han d’ogni intorno le muraglie chiuse,
Sicchè da’ lati del teatro alcuna
Luce non passi, tanto più cosperse
Di grazia e di lepor ridon le cose
Di dentro, ecc.
Trad. Marchetti.

74. «Avanti tutti, Gneo Pompeo col far iscorrere le acque per le vie, temperò
l’ardore estivo.» Lib. II. c. 496.

75. «Oggi per avventura credi più sapiente quegli che trovò come con latenti
condotti si porti a immensa altezza e si sprizzi acqua profumata di
zafferano.»

76.

Non ondeggiava sulla curva arena

Pompa di veli, nè odoroso croco
Spirava intorno ognor la molle scena.
 Lib. IV, el. I Trad. di M. Vismara.

77.

Non si stendean sulla marmorea arena

Le vele allor, nè s’era vista ancora
D’acqua di croco rosseggiar la scena.
Lib. I. v. 103-104. Mia versione.

78.

Testè, solo fra tutti, Orazio in bruno

Mantello agli spettacoli assistea,
Mentre la plebe, il maggior duce, e l’uno
Ordine e l’altro in bianco vi sedea.
Spessa neve dal ciel cadde repente:
In mantel bianco Orazio ecco sedente.
Lib. IV. 2. Trad. Magenta.

79. «Un giorno (Augusto) avendo in un’assemblea di popolo veduto una

gran turba in mantelli neri, pieno di corruccio si diè a gridare: Ecco son
questi

I togati Romani arbitri in tutto?

e commise agli edili che quind’innanzi più alcun cittadino non

comparisse nel foro o nel circo, se non deposto prima il mantello.» C.
XL.

80. «A Marco Olconio Rufo, figlio di Marco, duumviro incaricato per la quinta
volta dell’amministrazione della giustizia, quinqueviro per la seconda
volta, tribuno dei soldati eletto dal popolo, flamine d’Augusto, patrono
della colonia, per decreto de’ decurioni.»

81. «Marco Olconio Rufo e Marco Olconio Celere a propria spesa eressero
una cripta, un tribunale, un teatro a lustro della Colonia.»

82. «A Marco Olconio Celere duumviro di giustizia, cinque volte designato

sacerdote d’Augusto.»

83. De Rich, Diz. d’Antichità, voce Thymele.

84. Parte I, cap. I, p. 6.

85. Lib. cap. 13. 2.

86. Epist. Ex Ponto. Epist XVI.

87.

Indi fidai con gravi accenti al tragico

Coturno, qual dovea, regal subbietto.
Trad. dell’ab. Paolo Mistrorigo.

88.

Io salvarti potei e mi domandi

Se struggerti non possa?...
Instit. Orat. VIII. 5.

89.

Quasi invasa da un Dio, qua e là son tratta.

90.

Le pugne de’ centimani

Sacrileghi giganti
Cantar tentai: ho cetera
Pe’ carmi altisonanti.

91. Tristium, lib. II. 519.

92. Id. lib. V. 7. 25.

93. Inst. Orat. X. I. «che può essere paragonata a qualunque tragedia

greca.»

94.

LA NUTRICE.

Partiro i Colchi; nulla fu la fede

Del tuo consorte e di dovizie tante
Più nulla resta a te.

MEDEA.

Resta Medea.

Atto II. Sc. I.

 95.

TESEO.

Di’, qual delitto colla morte intendi

D’espiar?

FEDRA.

Quello ch’io vivo.

96.

Tempo vegg’io propizio

In avvenir lontano,
In cui torrà gli ostacoli
Fremente l’oceano,
Ed ingente una terra apparirà;
Nè Tile fia più l’ultima;
Ma nuovi mondi Teti scoprirà.
Mia trad.

97. Lipsia, 1822.

98. Lipsia, 1852.

99. Antichità di Pompei. Vol. IV.

100.

Ecco d’eroici sensi menar vampo

Cianciator grecizzante.
Sat. I. v. 69. Trad. V. Monti.

101. Le publicai tradotte in un volume: Publio Siro — I Mimiambi. — Pagnoni,

1871.

102. Nat. Hist., IX. 59.

103.

Quei cui parrà tuo genio al suo conforme

Con l’un pollice e l’altro avvien che innalzi
Fautor suoi plausi a’ marzïal tuoi ludi.
Epist. lib. 1. ep. XIX 66. Trad. Gargallo.
 Vedi anche Plinio Nat. Hist. XXVIII, II. 3.

104.

Nè l’opra tua puoi vendere a cotesta

Gente nel foro o nel teatro.
Epig. Lib. VII. 64.

105. Lib. IV. 15.

106. Paradox. III, 2. De Orat. III.

107. Pag. 46.

108. In Pericle 13.

109. Lib. V. 9. 10.

110. Cap. V.

111. «Egualmente sono a lui dovuti e il tempio della gente Flavia e uno stadio
e un odeum ed una naumachia, delle cui pietre di poi valsero alla
riparazione del gran circo, i due lati del quale erano stati incendiati.»

112. I giuochi di Achille in onor di Patroclo sono narrati nel libro XXIII
dell’Iliade.

113.

Questi torneamenti, e queste giostre

Rinnovò poscia Ascanio, allor ch’eresse
Alba la lunga; appresegli i Latini;
Gli mantenner gli Albani; e d’Alba a Roma
Fur trasportati, e vi son oggi; e come
E l’uso e Roma e i giochi derivati
Son dai Trojani, hanno or di Troja il nome.
Æneid. Lib. V. 596-601. Trad. Annib. Caro.

114. Annales. Lib. XI. C. XV.

115. Da αμφι, da ambe le parti, e da θεατρον, teatro.

116. Nat. Hist. Lib. XXXVI.

117. «Ciò che non fecero i Barbari fecero i Barbarini.»

118. Narra a tal proposito Dione che Nerone accolse benignamente e
onorevolmente quel re, facendo, oltre altre solennità, anche ludi
gladiatorj in Pozzuoli. Fu prefetto di essi Patrobio Liberto, e ne fu tanta
la magnificenza, che nessuno nello spazio d’un sol giorno potesse
entrar nell’anfiteatro all’infuori degli uomini, delle donne e dei fanciulli
Etiopi; onde Patrobio ne riportasse onore. Ivi il Re Tiridate, sedendo in
luogo principale, con dardo colpiva le fiere e con un solo colpo ferì due
tori ed uccise. Queste feste compiute, Nerone lo condusse a Roma e
gl’impose la corona.

119. «Cajo Quinzio Valgo figlio e Marco Porcio figlio di Marco Duumviri
Quinquennali, hanno per onore della Colonia costruito col proprio
denaro l’anfiteatro, concedendone ai Coloni il posto in perpetuità.»

120. Cajo Cuspio Pansa figlio di Cajo, pontefice Duumviro incaricato di

rendere giustizia.

121. Cajo Cuspio Pansa figlio di Cajo, padre, Duumviro per la giustizia,
quattroviro quinquennale, prefetto, per decreto de’ Decurioni, al
mantenimento della legge Petronia.

122. Gli scavi ripresi nel 1813 e durati fino al 1816 lo misero interamente alla
luce, come trovasi di presente.

123. «Il Patrono del sobborgo Augusto Felice sopra i ludi per decreto de’
decurioni — T. Atullio Celere figlio di Cajo Duumviro sopra i ludi, le porte
e la costruzione de’ cunei, per decreto de’ Decurioni. — Lucio Saginio,
Duumviro, incaricato dalla giustizia fece, per Decreto de’ Decurioni, gli
aditi. — Nonio Istacidio figlio di Nonio, cilice, Duumviro sopra i ludi fe’ gli
aditi. — Aulo Audio Rufo figlio di Aulo Duumviro sopra i ludi, e fe’ gli
aditi. — Marco Cantrio Marcello figlio di Marco Duumviro sopra i ludi e
fece tre cunei, per decreto de’ Decurioni.»

124. Io ho creduto di tradurre sopra i ludi e non pour les jeux, come tradusse
Bréton, e la parola lumina, non come il Garrucci e il Mommsen e altri per
illuminazione, ma per aditi, cioè i vomitorj, porte e spiragli de’
sotterranei, perchè mi parve più naturale e probabile che coi cunei si
facessero i relativi aditi, androni ecc., e nel diritto romano si trovi sempre
usata la parola lumina per indicare le finestre. Così anche l’abate
Romanelli.

125. Pompeja p. 227 e 228 seguendo la lezione di Rénier: la ragione ne è

fornita dopo la lettera di Rénier.
126. Lib. 5, 24:

Ermete de’ Locarii arricchimento.

Trad. Magenta.

127.

All’alte file io giunsi, ove la turba,

Dalla bruna e vil veste, spettatrice
Tra le femminee cattedre sedea;
Però che tutto quanto era all’aperto
Di cavalieri e di tribuni in bianco
Abbigliamento si vedea stipato.
Mia trad.

128. La famiglia gladiatoria di Numerio Popidio a 28 ottobre darà in Pompei

una caccia, e a’ 20 di aprile si metteranno le antenne ed i velarj.

129. La famiglia gladiatoria di Numerio Festo Ampliato giostrerà di nuovo a’

sedici maggio e vi sarà la venazione e si metteranno i velarii.

130. Senec. Epist. 95 e Lamprid. Commod. 18 e 19.

131.

Scorpo son io, del circo onor solenne,

Tuo plauso, o Roma, e breve tuo contento.
Morte al ventisettesmo anno m’ha spento;
Contò mie palme, e già vecchio mi tenne.
Lib. X, ep. 57. Trad. Magenta

132.

Oggi.... il solo Circo

Tutta nel suo giron comprende Roma....
Sì, dal fragor che intronami l’orecchio,
Vincitor ne argomento il verde panno.
Sat. XI. v. 195-96. Trad. Gargallo

133.

De’ vincenti ronzon proclamatore,

Siede il Pretor in trionfal corredo.
Sat. XI. 191-93. Trad. Gargallo.
134. «Abbia contro sè irata Venere pompejana chi a questa insegna porterà
offesa.»

135.

Gli abbattimenti
Colla sinopia, e col carbon dipinti,
Quand’io talor di Rutuba, di Flavio,
O di Placideian, a gamba tesa
Stommi a guatar, qual se verace fosse,
Di que’ prodi il pugnare, il mover l’arme,
Lo schermirsi, il ferir....
Trad. Gargallo.

136. Hist. Lib. 11. 88.

137. «Giurammo fede ad Eumolpione, sotto pena di essere abbruciati, legati,

battuti, ammazzati, e quant’altro fosse esatto da lui, consecrandogli
religiosamente, come i veri gladiatori consacrano a’ loro padroni, i corpi
nostri e la vita.» Satyricon. Cap. XXVII, trad. Vinc. Lancetti.

138.

Di peggio che si può, tranne l’arena?

E ancor qui trovi il disonor di Roma.
Eccoti un Gracco: mirmillonic’arme
Egli non veste: non impugna scudo,
O adunca falce: arnesi son cotesti
Ch’egli condanna; anzi condanna e abborre.
Nè il volto asconde sotto l’elmo; il mira:
Squassa il tridente, e poi che mal librata
La mano scaglia le sospese reti,
Dassi a fronte scoperta e a gambe alzate
Spettacolo a l’intorno. — È desso, è Gracco!
(Gridan tutti); la tunica l’attesta,
E l’aurea nappa che gli fascia il collo
E avvolta al pileo sventolando ondeggia.
Ond’è che il seguitor, vistosi astretto
Con un Gracco a pugnare, in sè ne freme
Qual d’un’onta peggior d’ogni ferita.
Sat. VIII. Trad. Gargallo.

139. «I Campani, per odio de’ Sanniti, armarono di quelle ricche spoglie i
gladiatori, che appellarono col nome di Sanniti.»
140.

Chi non le ha viste impalandrate e d’unto

Atletico incerate; e chi non vide
Lor colpi, bagordando a la quintana?
Con l’asta in pugno e con lo scudo in braccio
Assal, ferisce, martella, disbarba,
Tutte osservando del giostrar le leggi....
O matrona arcidegna de la tromba
Che di Flora all’agon le prodi invita!
Se non che, a maggior opra il cor rivolto,
Già s’apparecchia a la verace arena.
Qual vuoi trovar pudor in una donna,
Che il biondo crin in lucid’elmo accolga;
Che, schiva al sesso, a vigor maschio aneli?
Sat. VI, 218 e segg. Trad. di T. Gargallo.

141. Atto III.

142.

Cogniti a tutti i borghi un di costoro

Cornette e trombettier, de’ gladiatori
Girovaghi compagni, indivisibili;
Questi già un dì spettacolo, son ora
Que’ che danno spettacoli; e del popolo
Adulatori, a un suo volger di pollice,
Uccidon chi si sia popolarmente.
Trad. Gargallo.

143.

...... il pollice chinato,

La pudibonda vergine commanda
Che sia trafitto del giacente il petto.

144. Atto V.

145. Nat. hist. lib. XXXIV. «Fece un ferito morente, in cui si potesse
comprendere quanto in lui restasse ancora di anima.»

146. Byron. Pellegrinaggio di Childe Harold c. IV. st. CXL., CXLI.

147. «Stima (il popolo) ingiuria, perchè non periscano volontieri.»

148. «Il cadavere del gladiatore venga trascinato coll’uncino e lo si ponga
nello spoliario.»

149. Bond, scoliaste d’Orazio, le vuol dette Ambubaje dall’essere per ebrietà
balbuzienti.

150.

Or qual mai sia la razza prediletta

A’ nostri maggiorenti, e che mi sprona
A fuggir come lepre, in brevi detti
(Nè pudor men ritiene) io ti confesso
Roma, o Romani, divenuta greca
(Benchè la feccia achea qual può formarne
Picciola quota?) digerir non posso.
Pria di questa nel Tebro il siro Oronte
Era sboccato; e già sermon, costumi,
E flauti e cetre da le corde oblique
Seco tratti vi avea, frigi timballi,
E merce di fanciulle al Circo esposta.
Voi, cui fan gola barbare lupatte
Vario-mitrate, itene pure a loro.
Trad. Gargallo.

151.

E truppe d’ambubaje e speziali,

Mimi, accattoni e zanni, afflitta è tutta
Questa bordaglia dell’estremo fato
Di Tigellio cantor, poichè per essa
Generoso fu sempre.
Mia trad. [152]

152. A Gargallo mi sono sostituito, non avendo egli serbato fedeltà al primo
verso d’Orazio, che tradusse:

Troppo di canterine e vendi-empiastri.

La citazione, mettendo in disparte la parola ambubaje, sarebbe stata

perfettamente inutile.

153.

Ditelo voi di Lepido nepoti,

 Di Fabio il ghiotto e di Metello il cieco,
Qual gladiatrice (ludia) mai vestì tai vesti.
Trad. Gargallo.

154. Svetonio, in Neronem. Cap. XII.

Vedemmo Pasifae dal toro coperta

E la prisca favola or fede ha più certa.
Gli antichi più, o Cesare, non vantin lor gesta:
Checchè fama celebra l’arena ci appresta.
Trad. Magenta.

155. In Claud. c. XXI.

156. Id. In Neron. 12.

157. Id. In Tit. c. VII.

158. In Domitianum, c. V.

159.

Checchè ti mostrano di più preclaro

L’Anfiteatro e il Circo i splendidi
Flutti di Cesare qui ti mostraro.
Il lago scordinsi Fucin le genti,
E di Nerone gli stagni: ai posteri
Questo spettacolo sol si rammenti.
Trad. Magenta.

160. In August. c. XLIII.

161. Ad V. Æneid. 114.

162. Epist. VII, ep. 1.

163. Hist. Lib. XXXIX, c. 22.

164.

Quel toro, che già poco

Scorrea, punto dal fuoco,
Nell’arena i bersagli a rovesciar,
Cadde alfin, dal suo tratto
Cieco furor, nell’atto
 Che credea l’elefante in aria alzar.
De Spectaculis. Ep. 21. Tr. Magenta.

165. In Cæsar. c. 39.

166. Nat. Hist. Lib. VIII, c. 2.

167. In Galbam, c. 6.

168. Lib. LXI. c. 17, anche Svetonio il riporta In Neronem, c. XI.

169. Epig. lib. 1. 7.

L’aquila, onde su l’etere

Recare il putto illeso,
Al sen con l’ugne timide
Si strinse il caro peso.
Tr. Magenta.

170. Id. Lib. V. 55.

Dimmi, o regina degli augei, chi porti?

Il Tonante.
Trad. id.

171. In Domit. c. 4.

172.

Che il Dio belligero

Per te distinguasi
Nell’armi ognor,
Non basta, o Cesare,
Per te distinguesi
Venere ancor.
La fama d’Ercole
Vantava l’inclita
Nobil tenzon,
Quando nell’ampia
Nemea boscaglia
Spense il lion.
Taccian le favole,
Chè fatti simili
Per tuo favor
Oprarsi, o Cesare,
 Da man femminea
Vedemmo or or.
Epigr. 8. Trad. Magenta.

173.

Come al scizio ciglion Prometeo stretto

Nutre l’augel col rinascente petto,
Laureol così da vera croce pende,
E ad orso caledonio il fianco stende.
Palpitavan sue viscere, grondanti,
Lacere, e a corpo uman più non sembianti.
La pena alfin scontò del parricidio,
Del fero nel padron commesso eccidio,
Del rapito nei templi oro nascosto,
O dell’iniquo fuoco a Roma posto.
Nei delitti costui gli antichi ha vinti;
Ma fur gli strazj suoi veri e non finti.
Lib. De Spectæ. Epig. 9. Trad. Magenta.

174. Storia della Prostituzione, Vol. I. Cap. XVIII.

175. Ode, La Ghigliottina.

176. Schroek: Christliche Kirchengeschichte. Vol. VII, p. 254.

177. Storia degli Italiani, vol. I, pag. 277.

178. In Ner., c. XI.

179. Diz. delle Antichità.

180. Varr. 8 L. L. 41.

181. Delle antiche Terme di Firenze, pp. 67 e 68.

182. La camicia di tela che usiamo noi, imitò l’uso ed il nome dal camiss
persiano, e pare introdotta verso la metà del xii secolo.

183.

L’ottava ora tien fissa:

Di Stefano sai quanto ha i bagni accosto.
Ci laverem tantosto:
Tr. Magenta.
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