We live in a time of great fear. Terrorism. Financial instability. Food security...or is that now "nutrisekur"? Well, here's one more - tiny substances:

A blue-ribbon scientific panel has waved a yellow flag in front of a rapidly expanding number of products containing nanomaterials, cautioning that the tiny substances might be able to penetrate cells and interfere with biological processes...Their small size, the report says, may allow them “to usurp traditional biological protective mechanisms” and, as a result, possibly have “enhanced toxicological effects.”

Yeeouch! Bad enough that they may have toxicological effects but these ones are enhanced! I really hope this is not all about the industrial dusty cheesy coating on snack foods. That stuff is really tiny but tangy and tasty, too. Note that one conclusion of the study is that "there are inadequate data to inform quantitative risk assessments on current and emerging nanomaterials." Hmm. So they may not really know. Note, too, that there is no apparent reference to that Wired magazine article from before a few bubble economies ago called "Why the future doesn't need us" in which Bill Joy argued that 21st-century technologies like genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics (GNR) would be so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. It's always a good bit of reading for those wanting to get scared out of their skins what with sentences like: "if our own extinction is a likely, or even possible, outcome of our technological development, shouldn't we proceed with great caution?"

Yowza! But what about my cheese dust? If we are witnessing the end of life on earth through our own incompetent worship of the blind progress of science, I want cheese dusty snacks on the way out.