# The Perils of Progress



## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

A friend emailed me links to some 'science news' articles yesterday. This post shows those links, my responses to them, and his follow-up:

>> Hmm. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/244392.php

> (response) Eek.

>> Wow. http://medgadget.com/2012/04/scientists-create-alien-genetic-material-capable-of-evolution.html

> (response) Uh-oh.

>> Believe. http://cleantechauthority.com/defkalion-announces-lenr-date-mitsubishi-enters-lenr-market/

> (response) Wonder how the plutocrats will screw me on this stuff.

LOL - you seem to have issues with sub-microscopic machines in your food, with evolving alien dna that's tougher than normal dna, and even with modern economic distribution of resources!. Tsk-tsk.

Except I agree. I think the reason time passes people by is really because they just don't want 10 times the headaches they've already put up with.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

For the first link, I would point out that people tend to confuse nanomaterials, which exist, with nanomachines, which are still, for the most part, the stuff of science fiction. As I understand it, the nanomaterials in cosmetics are tiny vesicles. There's no a priori reason to think they would be harmful. The products are really just a different kind of emulsion.

The second one is very interesting. They're still a long way off from creating a viable artificial life form, but I'm firmly in favour of any research that gives creationists a headache, and so I'm willing to live with the risks.

The third one puzzles me, because I thought that viable nuclear fusion for energy production (if that's what they're actually talking about here) was still a long way off, and that the best way to go about it is to fuse tritium (a hydrogen isotope), contained in a magnetic "bottle," with a powerful laser beam. But the device described doesn't seem to be anything like that. Maybe one of our resident physicists would like to comment on this one.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

HEY I actually worked on designed a nanoparticle system for use in food products not long ago. I never went through the trouble of FDA approval/patents and all that mess though, but it was really pretty cool stuff. I personally don't see anything scary about it, like the poster above me said nanoparticles are typically just really small particles in an emulsion. The particular system I designed involved encapsulating beta carotene (the stuff that makes carrots orange) with soy lecithin (a food-grade surfactant derived from soy beans, used heavily in the food industry). Once you do that you have these big "droplets" in the solution, and basically just break them up until they're small enough to be referred to as nanoparticles. Of course it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the jist of it!


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