Nanowerk reports on a new nanotechnology ethics database at IIT: NanoEthicsBank. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is their experiment with participatory tagging: In conjunction with the fixed subject terms used in the NanoEthicsBank, we are also developing an experimental “folksonomy” tagging system for the database. A folksonomy ...

On the plane back from last week’s U.S. National Nanotechnology Coordinating Office-sponsored workshop on ethics and nanotechnology, I dug into the report “Health and Nanotechnology: Economic, Societal, and Institutional Impact” (not on web, as far as I can tell). This was the result of a meeting sponsored by the U.S. ...

Switzerland’s Centre for Technology Assessment has issued its report Public Reactions to Nanotechnology in Switzerland (428 KB pdf), and — not surprisingly — it’s relatively balanced. From page 33 (page 35 of pdf file): “There’s a good and a bad side to everything” — This saying sums up quite well the way that the ...