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  • A comparison between two recent national surveys among nanoscientists and the general public in the US shows that, in general, nanoscientists are more optimistic than the public about the potential benefits of nanotechnology. However, for some issues related to the environmental and long-term health impacts of nanotechnology, nanoscientists were significantly more concerned than the public.

    • Dietram A. Scheufele
    • Elizabeth A. Corley
    • David H. Guston
    Commentary
  • Access to 'potable' water would transform the lives of many people in the developing world. Nanotechnology is already being used to remove contaminants from drinking water and increase the availability of fresh water, but there is still a long way to go.

    • Thembela Hillie
    • Mbhuti Hlophe
    Commentary
  • Uncertainties in new regulations that cover the manufacture, importation and production of chemicals in the European Union could make it more difficult to commercialize nanotechnology.

    • Diana M. Bowman
    • Geert van Calster
    Commentary
  • Addressing the ethical, legal and social implications of nanotechnology will help to reverse the fragmentation of academic fields into multiple subdisciplines, end the artificial separation between pure and applied research, and bridge the gap between science and the society it serves, as well as helping to avoid a possible public backlash.

    • Tom Vogt
    • Davis Baird
    • Chris Robinson
    Commentary
  • Molecular beam epitaxy is widely used in research and industry to make semiconductor devices and structures. However, despite its ability to control matter with near-atomic precision, the technique is overlooked in most histories of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

    • W. Patrick McCray
    Commentary
  • In its rush to introduce new regulations about the handling of nanomaterials, the city of Berkeley in California has made mistakes that should not be repeated elsewhere.

    • John C. Monica Jr
    • Michael E. Heintz
    • Patrick T. Lewis
    Commentary
  • Nanotechnology is having a major impact on medicine and the treatment of disease, notably in imaging and targeted drug delivery. It may, however, be possible to go even further and design 'pseudo-cell' nanofactories that work with molecules already in the body to fight disease.

    • Philip R. LeDuc
    • Michael S. Wong
    • Minami Yoda
    Commentary
  • How do the risks and benefits of nanotechnology, as viewed by the public, compare with those associated with other technologies such as genetically modified organisms, stem cells, biotechnology and nuclear power? And when deciding to use a specific nanotechnology product, will consumers consider the risks, the benefits, or both? We report the first large-scale empirical analyses of these questions.

    • Steven C. Currall
    • Eden B. King
    • Stacey Turner
    Commentary
  • Analysis of scientific papers, patent applications and funding, by geography and area of nanotechnology, reveals the different strengths and weaknesses of Europe with respect to the US, Japan and the rest of the world.

    • Angela Hullmann
    Commentary
  • The invention of the scanning tunnelling microscope 25 years ago, followed by the arrival of the atomic force microscope five years later, were crucial events in the history of nanoscience and nanotechnology. As the recent International Conference on Nanoscience and Technology in Basel made clear, scanning probe microscopes based on these discoveries are still having a tremendous impact on many areas of research.

    • Christoph Gerber
    • Hans Peter Lang
    Commentary