查看完整版本: 《自然—纳米技术》：纳米技术对环境和人类健康或存巨大危害

《自然—纳米技术》：纳米技术对环境和人类健康或存巨大危害

[color=Blue]【纳米科技世界快讯】纳米技术自诞生之日就引起媒体普遍关注。截至目前，进入销售渠道的纳米产品已达数百种。然而，英国《自然—纳米技术》（Nature Nanotechnology）杂志11月25日公布一份报告称，与普通民众对这一技术的积极态度不同，科学家们因纳米技术可能对人类健康和生态环境造成消极影响而忧心忡忡。[/color]

[b]“默认”风险[/b]

报告在全美国范围内电话调查了363名纳米技术科学家、工程师和1015名非专业人士。调查结果显示，科学家们虽然认同他们所从事的纳米研究将给医学、环保、国防等领域带来突破，却对纳米技术可能给环境和人类健康带来的风险抱有严重担忧。

报告第一作者、美国威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校教授迪耶特拉姆·朔伊费莱说：“科学家们不说纳米技术存在问题。他们说：‘我不知道。研究尚未结束。’”

一纳米是一米的十亿分之一。纳米技术可用于生产新型抗菌材料，制造采集患者细胞样本的微型探针、功能更强大的计算机和激光设备。纳米材料比目前已得到广泛应用的任何一种材料都更轻、更结实，有望给汽车和飞机制造、制衣、机器人技术等领域带来变革。已问世的纳米产品包括高尔夫球杆、网球拍和抗菌食物储藏容器等。

调查结果表明，20%的受访科学家担心，纳米技术可能对环境构成新形式的污染；非专业受访者中，只有15%持有相同观点。超过30%的科学家担心纳米科技可能给人类健康带来风险；非专业受访者中，抱有这种担心的只有20%。

[b]媒体误导[/b]

朔伊费莱说，科学界内部已有纳米技术风险性的讨论，只是苦于相关研究缺乏实质进展。与此同时，媒体却大力宣传纳米技术的前景，对它的风险轻描淡写，这会误导公众。

虽然纳米技术可能对人类健康和环境造成的具体危害尚无定论，但研究者正对每种可能性逐一排查，如纳米粒子被吸入肺中会有何影响，以及纳米材料是否有毒等。

调查结果显示，科学家们对纳米技术的担忧甚于其他技术。核能技术和转基因食品技术出现时，科学家们对这些技术风险性的担心程度也高于公众。

然而，科学家们与公众沟通的能力似乎有限。朔伊费莱说，纳米专家们希望在这项技术得到广泛应用前就向公众阐述它的风险。因为核能技术和转基因食品出现时，公众起初表现狂热，却在后来不断出现的事故或暴露出的风险中渐感忧虑。

“纳米技术可能是第一项需要科学家向公众解释，为何他们要多多少少对它的风险感到担忧的新兴技术。”朔伊费莱说。

这个真的很难说啊

估计百年后可以有点眉目

用不了那么长时间，其实还是做纳米的人多注意好，先受害的人还是纳米工作者们，保护好自己。手套，口罩，眼镜尽量戴上，有毒的东西尽量在通风厨里做，而且尽量不用有毒的物质。

全副装备，呵呵:handshake

Nanotech's health, environment impacts worry scientists

MADISON - The unknown human health and environmental impacts of nanotechnology are a bigger worry for scientists than for the public, according to a new report published today (Nov. 25) in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The new report was based on a national telephone survey of American households and a sampling of 363 leading U.S. nanotechnology scientists and engineers. It reveals that those with the most insight into a technology with enormous potential -- and that is already emerging in hundreds of products -- are unsure what health and environmental problems might be posed by the technology.

"Scientists aren't saying there are problems," says the study's lead author Dietram Scheufele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication and journalism. "They're saying, 'we don't know. The research hasn't been done.'"

The new findings are in stark contrast to controversies sparked by the advent of technologies of the past such as nuclear power and genetically modified foods, which scientists perceived as having lower risks than did the public.

Nanotechnology rests on science's newfound ability to manipulate matter at the smallest scale, on the order of molecules and atoms. The field has enormous potential to develop applications ranging from new antimicrobial materials and tiny probes to sample individual cells in human patients to vastly more powerful computers and lasers. Already products with nanotechnology built in include such things as golf clubs, tennis rackets and antimicrobial food storage containers.

At the root of the information disconnect, explains Scheufele, who conducted the survey with Elizabeth Corley at Arizona State University, is that nanotechnology is only now starting to emerge on the nation's policy agenda. Amplifying the problem is that the news media have paid scant attention to nanotechnology and its implications.

"In the long run, this information disconnect could undermine public support for federal funding in certain areas of nanotechnology research," says Corley.

"Nanotechnology is starting to emerge on the policy agenda, but with the public, it's not on their radar," says Scheufele. "That's where we have the largest communication gap."

While scientists were generally optimistic about the potential benefits of nanotechnology, they expressed significantly more concern about pollution and new health problems related to the technology. Potential health problems were in fact the highest rated concern among scientists, Scheufele notes.

Twenty percent of the scientists responding to the survey indicated a concern that new forms of nanotechnology pollution may emerge, while only 15 percent of the public thought that might be a problem. More than 30 percent of scientists expressed concern that human health may be at risk from the technology, while just 20 percent of the public held such fears.

Of more concern to the American public, according to the Nature Nanotechnology report, are a potential loss of privacy from tiny new surveillance devices and the loss of more U.S jobs. Those fears were less of a concern for scientists.

While scientists wonder about the health and environmental implications of the new technology, their ability to spark public conversation seems to be limited, Scheufele says. "Scientists tend to treat communication as an afterthought. They're often not working with social scientists, industry or interest groups to build a channel to the public," he says.

The good news for scientists, Scheufele explains, is that of all sources of nanotechnology information, they are the most trusted by the public.

"I think the public wants to know more. The applications are out there and that concern gap has to be addressed," Scheufele argues. "The climate for having that discourse is perfect. There is definitely a huge opportunity for scientists to communicate with a public who trusts them."

### In addition to Scheufele, authors of the Nature Nanotechnology report include Corley and David H. Guston of Arizona State University; and Sharon Dunwoody, Tsung-Jen Shih and Elliott Hillback of UW-Madison. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation as part of the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University and the UW-Madison Graduate School.

做实验时要全副武装,看来每次带手套是很有必要的

每次带手套绝对有必要