Tiny Bits of Silver, Used As Bacteria-Eaters, Emerge As New Health Concern

Science Survey
By RAE TYSON

Stinky socks may be socially embarrassing, but aren’t in the same league as other pressing environmental issues. On the other hand, there may well be a connection between odor-resistant socks and an emerging health and environmental concern.

Scientists, environmentalists and regulators alike are increasingly concerned about nanosilver — microscopic particles that are now used for bacterial control in well over 1,000 consumer products. These include toys, cosmetics, sunscreen, air and water filters, household cleaners, clothing and washing machines. One increasingly common use of nanosilver is in athletic socks to minimize offensive smells.

Though research is inconclusive, scientists have found evidence that nanosilver, once in the environment — most commonly in wastewater effluent — can potentially bioaccumulate in organisms such as earthworms, insects and fish. Studies also suggest that nanoparticles in soil can harm plants.

http://www.sej.org/publications/sejournal/tiny-bits-silver-used-bacteria-eaters-emerge-new-health-concern

Assessment of nanosilver products - 24.11.2010

NanoTrust project

The review under the NanoTrust project summarises findings related to silver compounds and their use in nano state.
Silver has a rich history of use in medicine and hygiene due to its broad-spectrum toxicity to bacteria, fungi and algae. Silver has been used increasingly in its nano-particulate form, which, according to the review, exhibits an elevated toxic potential compared to traditional silver compounds. Products containing nanosilver are one of the most important classes of nanoproducts. Nanosilver coatings on medical devices are used in hospital settings. In addition, items containing nanosilver are sold as various consumer products. The widespread use of nanosilver to fight bacterial growth has raised concerns, as low levels of silver ions could encourage the growth of silver-resistant bacteria.
The study concludes that it cannot be excluded that the beneficial healthy microflora of the human skin could be damaged following the use of cosmetic products containing nanosilver ingredients. Some of these effects may also be relevant to workers in a health care setting or using theseproducts routinely at work.  Read dossier n. 10
The NanoTrust project of the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences is sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Transport, Technology and Innovation.
A summary overview on how nanoparticles enter the body and their potential health effects is also available

http://osha.europa.eu/en/news/nanotechnologies-assessment-of-nanosilver-products

Abstract
The widespread use of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) in commercial products, especially textiles, will likely result in an unknown spread of Ag into the environment. The quantification and characterization of the Ag released from nano-Ag-products is an important parameter needed to predict the effect of Ag-NPs on the environment. The aim of this study was to determine the amount and the form of Ag released during washing from nine fabrics with different ways of silver incorporation into or onto the fibers. The effect of pH, surfactants, and oxidizing agents was evaluated. The results show that little dissolution of Ag-NPs occurs under conditions relevant to washing (pH 10) with dissolved concentrations 10 times lower than at pH 7. However, bleaching agents such as hydrogen peroxide or peracetic acid (formed by the perborate/TAED system) can greatly accelerate the dissolution of Ag. The amount and form of Ag released from the fabrics as ionic and particulate Ag depended on the type of Ag-incorporation into the textile. The percentage of the total silver emitted during one washing of the textiles varied considerably among products (from less than 1 to 45%). In the washing machine the majority of the Ag (at least 50% but mostly >75%) was released in the size fraction >450 nm, indicating the dominant role of mechanical stress. A conventional silver textile did not show any significant difference in the size distribution of the released silver compared to many of the textiles containing nano-Ag. These results have important implications for the risk assessment of Ag-textiles and also for environmental fate studies of nano-Ag, because they show that under conditions relevant to washing, primarily coarse Ag-containing particles are released.

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Tiny carbon nanotubes are being considered for use in everything from sports equipment to medical applications, but a great deal remains unknown about whether these materials cause respiratory or other health problems. Now a collaborative study from North Carolina State University, The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences shows that inhaling these nanotubes can affect the outer lining of the lung, though the effects of long-term exposure remain unclear.
Using mice in an animal model study, the researchers set out to determine what happens when multi-walled carbon nanotubes are inhaled. Specifically, researchers wanted to determine whether the nanotubes would be able to reach the pleura, which is the tissue that lines the outside of the lungs and is affected by exposure to certain types of asbestos fibers which cause the cancer mesothelioma. The researchers used inhalation exposure and found that inhaled nanotubes do reach the pleura and cause health effects.

Short-term studies described in the paper do not allow conclusions about long-term responses such as cancer. However, the inhaled nanotubes “clearly reach the target tissue for mesothelioma and cause a unique pathologic reaction on the surface of the pleura, and caused fibrosis,” says Dr. James Bonner, associate professor of environmental and molecular toxicology at NC State and senior author of the study. The “unique reaction” began within one day of inhalation of the nanotubes, when clusters of immune cells (lymphocytes and monocytes) began collecting on the surface of the pleura. Localized fibrosis, or scarring on parts of the pleural surface that is also found with asbestos exposure, began two weeks after inhalation.

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LINK

This not really a transmitter - but it can perhaps lead towards a read and write process in the future.

It is well known that the physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles are highly dependent upon a range of parameters – their size, shape, surface properties, embedded solvents, and the way that they were prepared and purified.
As Xu points out, their chemical and physical properties will surely affect their interactions with living organisms, and define their biocompatibility and toxicity in given living organisms. “Therefore, it will be misleading if one tries to compare the study of one type of nanoparticles in one living organism with other types of nanoparticles in other living organisms” she says.
To overcome the limitations of current nanotoxicity studies, Xu’s team have developed three important components for such studies:
– new methods to prepare stable (non-aggregated) and purified model nanoparticles (e.g., different sizes and surface functional groups of gold and silver nanoparticles);
– real-time imaging tools (e.g., DFOMS) for characterizing the size of individual nanoparticles in vivo in real-time; and
– effective in vivo assays (zebrafish embryos) for screening and probing the biocompatibility and toxicity of model nanoparticles, aiming to depict the dependence of biocompatibility and toxicity of nanoparticles on their physical and chemical properties, and their underlying mechanisms.
“We found gold nanoparticles in various parts of normally developed zebrafish,” says Xu. “Together with the strong variations in diffusion coefficients, these interesting findings suggest that the random diffusion of gold nanoparticles in embryos during their development might have led to uncertain effects on embryonic development.”
The team is already working on further probing what causes the embryos to become normally developed, deformed or dead zebrafish, as they are incubated with nanoparticles.

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dna11

Check out this site as well:

This from web2dna site:
web2dna

Share your DNA
See other people’s DNA (Flickr), or post your own (tag them with “web2dna”)
How it works
WEB2DNA will take you website, analyze it, crunch it to little bits and spit it out as a graphic representation of a human DNA.

The brightness of the lines is determined by the importance of the tags in terms of structure.

H1 is brighter than H2, which is brighter than H3.
TABLE is brighter than TR, which is brighter than TD tags.
Images and flash elements appear as 70% white.
New HTML tags like STRONG and EM is brighter than older ones like B and I
UL, OL and DL is brighter than their LI, DT, DD
DIV layout is brighter than table layout
Basically a semantically rich site will appear brighter than one with messy old-style code.

You can also determine the richness of text on a site. A site the focuses on (text) content is one where the DNA patterns is large (filling many containers), but contains a lot of empty spaces between the lines (empty space is the individual words).

When bees sting, they pump into their victims a peptide toxin called melittin that destroys cell membranes. Now, by encapsulating this extremely potent molecule within a nanoparticle, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a potential new type of anticancer therapy with the potential to target a wide range of tumors. This work was reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

This work, which is detailed in the paper “Molecularly targeted nanocarriers deliver the cytolytic peptide melittin specifically to tumor cells in mice, reducing tumor growth,” was supported by the NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, a comprehensive initiative designed to accelerate the application of nanotechnology to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer. An abstract is available at the journal’s Web site.

View abstract at HERE

source: http://nano.cancer.gov”

M.A. Shaha and Ahsanulhaq Qurashib,aEM Laboratory, Department of Physics, National Institute of Technology (Deemed University), Hazratbal, Srinagar 190006, India bDepartment of Engineering, Toyama University, 3190 Gofuku, Toyama 930-8555, Japan

Received 24 January 2009; revised 15 April 2009; accepted 16 April 2009. Available online 4 May 2009.
Abstract

A new and an environmentally benign route have been developed for the synthesis of MgO nanoflakes, which does not require any additives, surfactants and substrates. The technique is based on a very simple reaction of magnesium powder and water at temperature of 100 °C. The formation of MgO nanostructures by the reaction of metals with water is suggested to occur due to the decomposition of magnesium hydroxide at higher temperature and higher pressure. The MgO nanoflakes have an average width of 40 nm, thickness of 20 nm and length up to 1 μm. Compared with other methods, the present method is fast, economical, low temperature and free of pollution which will make it suitable for large scale production. Moreover, the technique does not require any sophisticated equipments and as such can be extended to the other metal oxides.

http://is.gd/2NKKm

Good over view of these nanoflakes: New Safety Directions for Nanotechnology
http://www.sciscoop.com/safety-nanotechnology-risks.htm

Malcolm Dando

Nature 460, 950-951 (20 August 2009) | doi:10.1038/460950a; Published online 19 August 2009

As researchers discover more agents that alter mental states, the Chemical Weapons Convention needs modification to help ensure that the life sciences are not used for hostile purposes, says Malcolm Dando.

Blind to misuse

The lack of engagement with this issue among life scientists in general is alarming. Some companies are already marketing oxytocin on the back of studies showing that a nasal squirt of the hormone increases trust in humans. Even though the effectiveness of commercial sprays is doubtful, such research opens up the possibility of a drug that could be used to manipulate people’s emotions in a military context. Discussions with more than 2,000 practising life scientists in 13 countries over the past few years have taught me that few have considered such possible uses of their work.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7258/full/460950a.html