News

Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has released the Review of Australia’s National Innovation System. Far from being a turning point for the future of innovation in Australia, as he...

Australia’s first ever attempt to involve members of the public in development of nanotechnology policy is hopelessly compromised, Friends of the Earth said today. The Queensland state government has invited in industry representatives who...

Carbon nanotubes – thin, hollow cylinders made of carbon atoms – look very much like asbestos. In 2004, the United Kingdom’s Royal Society and risk specialists at the world’s second largest reinsurance agent Swiss...

Queensland Conservation Council (QCC) and Friends of the Earth (FoE) today warned that tomorrow’s Science in Parliament briefing on nanotechnology, organised by Queensland’s Chief Scientist, shows unacceptable pro-industry bias and ignores nanotechnology’s serious new...

Australian Greens Senator Christine Milne has a long-standing interest in nanotechnology and new technology issues. In the June Government Estimates hearings, Senator Milne grilled Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr, the head of the Department’s...

‘Geo-engineering’ is the ultimate in pursuit of high risk ‘techno-fixes’ to the world’s big ecological problems. Its proponents want to use technology to attempt to ‘re-engineer’ the environment, for example by fertilising the ocean...

The European Trade Union Confederation, representing 82 European trade unions, has called for the “no safety data, no market” principle to be applied to nanoparticles. In its new statement the ETUC “calls on the...

Nanotechwire.com news service warns that the US “EPA Nanotechnology Voluntary Program Risks Becoming a ‘Black Hole'”. The service reports that: “Six months after launching its voluntary reporting program for nanomaterial producers, EPA has made...

Mesothelioma.com, “the authority on mesothelioma and asbestos cancer”, have published an information sheet that warns that exposure to nanotubes could pose similar risks to those of asbestos. “Current research suggests that exposure to carbon-based...

New research published this week shows that multi-walled carbon nanotubes cause asbestos-like disease when injected into mice stomachs. The shocking findings have prompted The Australian Cancer Council’s CEO Professor Ian Olver to call for...