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Nanotech Ultra Mega Mesothelioma Asbestosis w/a Half-Gainer off the High-Dive

--Read More In: Bio-Tech | Disease | Popular | Signal

Once upon a time, "back in the day"(s) when afro hairdos were huge and Bruce Lee had just officially become a God, a few enterprising caffeineheads decided to make a better mousetrap coffee cup; styrofoam, that is.

They were sick and tired of their coffee getting cold, and so whilst spinning lead into gold, (for Roche, DuPont or Pfizer, no doubt) they came up with an idea for superinsulators: smaller particles.

Into the existing structure of styrofoam they decided to impregnate insulating particles that were so amazingly small, they would fill all the voids in the rather mountainous and porous structure of the cup.

The results were spectacular! You could put hot coffee in the cup, come back an hour later and it would still be relatively hot. What could be better!?!! QED: "Better Living Through Chemistry!"

However, when the scientists examined the material, they found it was so satanically fine, they could hardly see it -at all; even with scanning electron microscopes. It had filled up the structure of the cup so well, that the damn thing seemed to practically violate the 4th Law of Thermodynamics!!!

The other (BIG) However was that when they tested coffee from the pot and coffee from the cup, they were just able to detect minute traces of the material, meaning if they could Find any -at all-, a comparatively HUGE amount had gotten into the coffee.

And So: All of the scientists involved concluded that the material was so small in size, that if it ever got into people's bodies, through food containers or other, there would be no stopping it, and probably no way to ever get it out.

(hmm, do some kind of fade or transition; maybe a fade-out-fade-in)

Many miles away, other people were working on the first of many years of Asbestos mitigation.
That insulating material (screwy, eh?) was also wreaking a little havoc of its own, mainly via the Johns-Manville corporation, becoming airborne, working its way into human lungs, never to see the light of day again, due to its barbed structure. (and of course if you are a smarty-pants mV reader you already know this ->) In many cases causing such irritation and inflammation, it overstimulated cell division and immune system response, killing off several thousand people in quite a painful way via the Black Plague of human chemistry meddlings: Mesothelioma.

(("Wayne's World" video transition) ...Diddleedoo, Diddleedoo, Diddleedoo...)

Fast forward a few decades to the Nano-Scale crazy scientific environment of today. There are perhaps more inventions out or emerging on the Nano Scale now, then there were at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

And that could pose a problem. ->What the Fark does a biological system do with a structure & particle size never seen in nature ever before? -A structure so tiny that it could potentially permeate the wall and nucleus of every cell in your body inside of (~?) 5 years.

(drumroll please) The Answer: Nobody has a clue.

"BUT WAIT!", you say, "CAP-TAIN JAMESCHH -SCHTEE- KIRK (of the sccchtarschip enterprische) SCHEZ WE'RE ALL CARBON-BASCHED LIFEFORMSCH! CARBON NANOTUBESCH MUSCHT BE YUMMYEE!" -maybe; maybe not...

The long and short is: Nanotech done the wrong way could be Catastrophic to [the] health (of everything).

It could be like the Ice 9 Crack Cocaine of Asbestosis or Mesothelioma. Especially if the structures have a "barb" to them.

Anything Nano for public release has got to be tested in every way imaginable, and some ways that haven't been yet imagined (sorry, Bunnies, Mice and PETA). And, if at all possible, should have a programmed life span and degrade gracefully.

ForEx: -What happens if junior is showing off for his new girlfriend and Hai-Karates a Wii nunchuck through the new Canon Carbon Nanotube SED Television? -What happens if you breathe enough of it in? Does it suffocate you and destroy your lungs cell-by-cell, alveolus-by-alveolus 'till you can't breathe?

-If a tractor-trailer carrying 16 tons of nanoparticles jackknifes on the Turnpike, spilling its contents, how do you even clean them up? -Do they end up eating you like those firebugs from "Red Planet"? (yeah I know, Sizemore totally screwed up. It's: g,a,t,C -DAMMIT, C!!!! -P- is not a freaking nucleotide!!)

(One more particulate example: Fiberglass comes out, Asbestos doesn't. Why? Structure.
Yes, Fiberglass's rough ends can act like micro-hatchets in your lungs, etc. but Fiberglass eventually exits, because it's smooth. Asbestos is not. One causes irritation, the other is several orders of magnitude worse, especially for the predisposed.)

Now imagine unseeable Nano-Asbestos Absolutely Everywhere.
!!!->Test those nanostructures before you put them out, Big Corporations!!!
(given the history of American business, I shudder to think...)
So remember, dig the 'fro or no, the '70s scientists' conclusion back then was: the smaller the particle, the more dangerous it is.

CRN- Dangers   Wired- NanoPants Attack!   Nano Lung-Circulatory Issues   Cosmos- ¡Achtung-Peligroso!!   Wired- How Safe Les Nanos?

Posted by Will on 02/25/07 | Email to a friend | Comments (0)
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