Home » nano » Recent Articles:

European Community Law and Nanotechnology: A Risky Business?

June 26, 2009 Commentaries, Environment, Health Comments Off
European Community Law and Nanotechnology

Naomi Salmon, Department of Law and Criminology, Aberystwyth University, Wales, UK

Following hot on the heels of the ‘Biotechnology Revolution’, the ‘Nanotechnology Revolution’ is now gathering steam. After twenty or so years of basic and applied research, industry players are now seeing the fruits of their R&D investments incorporated into all manner of products ranging from high performance tennis rackets and anti-odour socks to self-cleaning glass, food packaging materials and sunscreen lotions1.

… Continue Reading

Civil Society Statement on Nanotechnology: Guiding Principles for Regulation

March 14, 2008 Environment, Health, News Comments Off

An international coalition of 44 food, environment and labour organisations is calling for urgent precautionary management of nanotechnology’s toxicity risks to human health and the environment, and its significant social challenges. The group has released a joint statement that details the principles which should underpin precautionary and democratic management of this powerful new technology.
… Continue Reading

Science News on the Web

Why Independent Science News?

Scientific inventions and ideas shape the future. As science becomes ever more beset by commercial and ideological pressures, there is now an urgent need for scientific reporting and analysis from an independent, expert, public interest perspective. With this as its standard, Independent Science News works to shape a future that is biodiverse, just, and healthy for everyone.
More about us...

Commentaries

Designed to Fail: Why Regulatory Agencies Don’t Work

EPA Cleans up the San Juan River oil spill disaster 1972

William Sanjour* Albert Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. We have been “reforming” regulatory agencies over and over again, and over and over again they have failed. Yet, as a result of the recent catastrophic failures of regulatory …

Way Beyond Greenwashing: Have Corporations Captured Big Conservation?

Malaysia: Deforestation for Agriculture

Jonathan Latham (Photo Credit: auspices) Imagine an international mega-deal. The global organic food industry agrees to support international agribusiness in clearing as much tropical rainforest as they want for farming. In return, agribusiness agrees to farm the now-deforested land using organic methods, and the organic industry encourages its supporters to …

‘Phantom Heritability’ Indicates Poor Predictive Value of Gene Tests

DNA Sequencing Machines

Helen Wallace, GeneWatch UK (photo credit: jurvetson) Last week, a paper on “phantom heritability” was published by a research group led by Eric Lander, one of the leading contributors to understanding the implications of the Human Genome Project (HGP) for common, complex diseases such as heart disease and cancer (1). …

The Great DNA Data Deficit: Are Genes for Disease a Mirage?

Are Genes for Disease a Mirage?

Just before his appointment as head of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Francis Collins, the most prominent medical geneticist of our time, had his own genome scanned for disease susceptibility genes. He had decided, so he said, that the technology of personalised genomics was finally mature enough to yield meaningful results.

More Commentaries...

Reviews

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health

The China Study

Author: T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II ISBN: 1932100660, 978-1932100662 Publisher: Benbella Books (2004) What will it take for veggie stir-fry on rice to replace a beef burger on a bun as the all-American meal? A switch to a more plant-based diet has been standard dietary advice …

The Unhealthy Truth: How our Food is Making us Sick and What We Can Do About It

The Unhealthy Truth

Author: Robyn O’Brien (with Rachel Kranz) ISBN: 978-0-7679-3071-0 Publisher: Broadway books (2009) Allergies and food intolerances are serious medical conditions. They are the cause of many deaths and hospitalizations annually and they predispose to other illnesses. They can also exact a high toll in other ways since worry, inconvenience and …

More Reviews...

Switch to our mobile site