The National Science Foundation is now soliciting proposals for the creation of a national "Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology", with full proposals due in March. This Center will conduct research on the implications of nanotechnology on the environment and "living systems of all scales". This move is extremely promising given all the attention given to nanotechnology research in recent years, and could reveal important dangers that certain nanotechnologies pose to the environment before they have their effects. The announcement states that any proposals must be for a center with an interdisciplinary approach, combining biological, chemical, physical, computational, mathematical, social and behavioral sciences, ensuring that such a center would focus on all aspects of nanotechnology's effects on the environment.

This announcement comes just around the time of the article in this week's Economist which states "The unusual properties of tiny particles contain huge promise. But nobody knows how safe they are. And too few people are trying to find out." (The Economist. November 24th, 2007. p. 81) The fact that people are worried about unknown consequences of Nanotechnology is a step in the right direction, but we will see if announcements and articles like these will actually lead to the investigative rigor that we would hope for.

Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEIN)

Labels: Nanotechnology