“Give us a sign!” ETC Group implored.
The Toronto-based civil society organization, which has gained a reputation for clever grassroots campaigns against genetically engineered crops and other wealth-concentrating economic and technological forces (ETC stands for erosion, technology, concentration), turned to the Internet.
The sign it seeks is a warning sign. One that might become the internationally recognized symbol that a potentially toxic product of nanotechnology is nearby.
Thus did the quirky idea of holding a design contest turn into a global outpouring of creativity.
Nanotechnology is the hot new science of the very small, in which researchers are engineering materials and devices as tiny as a billionth of a meter across. At those scales, even mundane materials such as carbon perform extraordinary feats – conducting electricity, for example, or triggering chemical reactions – that they’d never do in their chunkier forms.
Already, hundreds of products containing nanomaterial are on the market, including stain-resistant fabrics, high-tech tennis rackets, cosmetic creams and sunscreens, computer hard drives and even a “Nanoceuticals Slim Shake,” which claims to deliver nutrition directly into your cells in the form of “CocoaClusters” that are one-100,000th the size of a grain of sand.
But while nanomaterials offer scientists, cosmetologists and health food companies a whole new palette of matter to work with, they also pose new risks to people and the environment. Animal studies have shown that certain engineered nanoparticles can penetrate cells and migrate into the brain and other organs with uncertain consequences.
Some can also concentrate in the soil and kill beneficial microbes.
While many scientists believe that most nanomaterials will ultimately prove to be benign, ETC Group – which has called for a moratorium on the marketing of nanoproducts until more safety studies are done – believes in erring on the side of caution. That led to the realization that there is not yet a widely recognized way to warn people of the little risks around them; hence, the idea to hold a contest.
“We decided to launch a competition, to get a good design and to raise public awareness,” said Hope Shand, ETC’s research director. “We thought we might receive a dozen entries or something.”
They were thinking small. By last week, more than 400 designs from 24 countries had been filed to the group’s website, www.etcgroup.org/nanohazard.
A panel of six judges, including nanoscientists and artists from such respected institutions as England’s Liverpool University and the Chicago Art Institute, winnowed the offerings to 16 finalists. Attendees at this year’s World Social Forum in Nairobi will get to vote this week for their favorite sign.
