nanotechnology

A breakthrough in material science has produced a highly malleable metallic substance called "metal rubber." This has been developed by a company called NanoSonic, and is the product of nanotechnology fabrication processes.

Metal rubber is very thin and can be bent, folded, or crumpled up, and then immediately snaps back to its original shape. It also conducts electricity just like solid metal. This of course has all sorts of industrial applications, including use in consumer electronics, military and aircraft industries, and medical technologies as well. It also has applications in robotics, where metal rubber could be used for robotic skin or flexible circuits. It may also be useful for creating artificial muscles.

While I'm not a big fan of the over-hyped nanotechnology field, this particular product of nanotechnology looks especially promising. A material such as this could potentially revolutionize flexible circuits and make all electronics, whether in robots, medical devices, or airplanes, far more resilient and resistant to fatigue.

Nanotechnology, it turns out, has a dark side that no one in the industry wants to talk about. New research suggests that nanoparticles could be harmful: fish exposed to nanoparticles duffered brain damage. Within 48 hours after being exposed to a very low concentration of nanoparticles, the fish produced brain damage that resembles Alzheimer's disease. But you won't hear that from the people involved in nanotech -- which seems to be anybody who wants a grant these days -- because they only want you to hear about the good news, not the bad.

There's not much good news, though: nanotechnology has so far been little more than hype. In fact, nobody can even agree on what nanotech really is. As the saying goes in the industry, "Nano is anything that I'm working on, but nothing that you're working on." Frankly, just about anything can be called nano, and if you scan the nanotech headlines these days, you'll see what I'm talking about.