As researchers, developers, policymakers and others grapple with navigating socially beneficial advanced technology transitions — especially those associated with artificial intelligence, DNA-based technologies, and quantum technologies — there are valuable lessons to be drawn from nanotechnology. These lessons underscore an urgent need to foster collaboration, engagement and partnerships across disciplines and sectors, together with bringing together people, communities, and organizations with diverse expertise, as they work together to realize the long-term benefits of transformative technologies.

Aerosols play a substantial role in determining the quality and potential health impacts of indoor air. However, understanding how they are measured, monitored, and mitigated starts with a basic understanding of how they behave. The term "aerosol" refers to a collection of liquid and/or solid particles suspended in a gas. Aerosol behavior is determined by the physics of the suspending gas and the suspended particles and interactions between them. Starting from kinetic theory, this chapter develops an understanding of basic properties of gas behavior and how this is connected to aerosol behavior. Properties of gases from molecular mean free path and viscosity to boundary layers, Reynolds number, laminar and turbulent flow, and flow stagnation are described. Building on these, the chapter explores how interactions between particles and a surrounding gas affect behavior under different conditions. Concepts that are relevant to understanding aerosol behavior within indoor environments are addressed, including definitions of diameter (including aerodynamic diameter), linear and curvilinear motion, particle mobility, relaxation time, stopping distance, and diffusion. The chapter is designed to provide an introduction to aerosol dynamics that will be helpful in addressing the behavior and potential impacts of aerosols within indoor environments.

In the emerging global landscape around technology innovation and social transformation, entrepreneurs have the potential to initiate chains of events that have profound impacts on society – a trend that is already apparent within the information technology sector. Yet given the potential dangers of unconstrained entrepreneurialism, there is a need for effective, workable approaches to responsible innovation within the entrepreneurial community. While top-down governance may be effective in creating crude boundaries within which responsible innovation occurs, successful implementation of responsible innovation within the US entrepreneurial community (and, by extension, to other economies) will ultimately depend on the underlying principles of responsible innovation becoming deeply engrained within the very fabric of the community. In their native form, the concepts of anticipation, reflexivity, inclusion and responsiveness do not necessarily lead to responsible innovation in the harsh light of commercial reality. Yet they hold the seeds for the entrepreneurial community to pivot towards a culture that is both successful and responsible. In this chapter, we discuss the social context and nature of the challenge, how the underlying principles of responsible innovation can be integrated into American entrepreneurial culture, and then offer examples of existing community-driven changes in behaviour. We argue that, as entrepreneurs continue to translate cutting-edge science and engineering into highly novel technologies within today's tightly coupled world, we cannot afford not to build a culture of responsibility that places a premium on societal good – both in the near term and for future generations.

Advanced brain machine interfaces provide potentially transformative approaches to treating neurological conditions and enhancing the performance of users. Yet, as technological capabilities continue to progress in leaps and bounds, there is a possibility that these capabilities outstrip our collective understanding of how to ensure brain machine interfaces are developed and used ethically and responsibly. In this case, there is an overt danger of rapid technological developments leading to unanticipated harm through a lack of foresight including threats to privacy, autonomy, self-identity, and other areas of personal and social value which, while hard to quantify, represent substantial risks. There is also a very real likelihood of such risks undermining value creation around the technologies and the associated enterprises, as key stakeholders push back against perceived and actual threats to what they, in turn, hold to be of value. In order to successfully traverse the resulting risk landscape, researchers and developers will need to become increasingly adept at integrating a sophisticated understanding of ethical and socially responsible innovation into their enterprises. Here, we illustrate how a “risk innovation” approach may provide novel insights into mapping out this landscape and revealing potentially blindsiding risks. We show how this approach can be used to illuminate challenges and opportunities to the successful, ethical, and responsible development of advanced brain machine interfaces. In addition, we emphasize how success will ultimately depend on the willingness of innovators and others to take ethical and responsible innovation seriously and to draw on the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary expertise that is necessary to translate good intentions into positive outcomes.

This chapter examines existing regulatory structures for cosmetic products containing nanomaterials. It does this by first providing a snapshot of the types of nanomaterials that are being incorporated into today's cosmetic products, and the potential benefits thereof. Second, by drawing on the current and projected cosmetic product landscape, it examines how these products fit under existing regulatory arrangements within the United States (US) and the European Union (EU)—the two largest cosmetics markets in the world (by dollar value). As the chapter shows, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to regulating a class of product, and factors beyond just science and scientific uncertainty will drive the design and implementation of a regulatory regime. This is arguably more so, though, with nanotechnology in the US and the EU, given the historical context in which nano-based products are being placed.

Background Within the last century, increases in human movement and globalization of trade have facilitated the establishment of several highly invasive mosquito species in new geographic locations with concurrent major environmental, economic and health consequences. The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, is an extremely invasive and aggressive daytime-biting mosquito that is a major public health threat throughout its expanding range. Methodology/Principal findings We used 13 nuclear microsatellite loci (on 911 individuals) and mitochondrial COI sequences to gain a better understanding of the historical and contemporary movements of Ae. albopictus in the Indo-Pacific region and to characterize its population structure. Approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) was employed to test competing historical routes of invasion of Ae. albopictus within the Southeast (SE) Asian/Australasian region. Our ABC results show that Ae. albopictus was most likely introduced to New Guinea via mainland Southeast Asia, before colonizing the Solomon Islands via either Papua New Guinea or SE Asia. The analysis also supported that the recent incursion into northern Australia’s Torres Strait Islands was seeded chiefly from Indonesia. For the first time documented in this invasive species, we provide evidence of a recently colonized population (the Torres Strait Islands) that has undergone rapid temporal changes in its genetic makeup, which could be the result of genetic drift or represent a secondary invasion from an unknown source. Conclusions/Significance There appears to be high spatial genetic structure and high gene flow between some geographically distant populations. The species' genetic structure in the region tends to favour a dispersal pattern driven mostly by human movements. Importantly, this study provides a more widespread sampling distribution of the species’ native range, revealing more spatial population structure than previously shown. Additionally, we present the most probable invasion history of this species in the Australasian region using ABC analysis.

Engineered nanomaterials present a new set of challenges to evaluating and avoiding potential human health impacts and developing safe, beneficial, and sustainable products. However, formulating problems in ways that render these challenges tractable from a scientifically sound and societally responsive basis is complex and continues to challenge researchers, regulators, policy makers, and manufacturers. After nearly two decades of nanotechnology research and development, the safe and responsible use of the technology remains a high priority. Yet it is clearer now than ever that greater sophistication is needed in how we frame the problems than need to be addressed, and how we arrive at innovative solutions to seemingly intractable challenges.

As artists and manufacturers explore the use of spray-on carbon nanotube coatings, Andrew D. Maynard explores the state of the science around nanotube safety.

Infertility and adverse pregnancy outcomes are significant public health concerns with global prevalence. Over the past 35years, research has addressed whether exposure to power-frequency magnetic fields is one of the etiologic factors attributed to these conditions. However, no apparent authoritative reviews on this topic have been published in the peer-reviewed literature for nearly 15years. This review provides an overview and critical analysis of human studies that were published in the peer-reviewed literature between 2002 and July 2015. Using PubMed, 13 epidemiology studies published during this time frame that concern exposure to magnetic fields and adverse prenatal (e.g., miscarriage), neonatal (e.g., preterm birth or birth defects), and male fertility (e.g., poor semen quality) outcomes were identified. Some of these studies reported associations whereas others did not, and study design limitations may explain these inconsistencies. Future investigations need to be designed with these limitations in mind to address existing research gaps. In particular, the following issues are discussed: (1) importance of selecting the appropriate study population, (2) need for addressing confounding due to unmeasured physical activity, (3) importance of minimizing information bias from exposure measurement error, (4) consideration of alternative magnetic field exposure metrics, and (5) implications and applications of personal exposure data that are correlated within female-male couples. Further epidemiologic research is needed, given the near ubiquitous exposures to power-frequency magnetic fields in the general population.

Earlier this year, British sculptor, Anish Kapoor was given exclusive rights to use a new spray-on carbon nanotube-based paint. The material ‐ produced by UK-based Surrey NanoSystems and marketed as Vantablack S-VIS ‐ can be applied to a range of surfaces, and absorbs well over 99% of the light that falls onto it. 1 It is claimed to be the world’s blackest paint, and there is growing interest in its use in works of art and highend consumer products. It’s easy to see the appeal of Vantablack S-VIS. Apart from technical applications where stray reflections need to be suppressed, this is a material that potentially enables manufacturers and artists to give their products a unique aesthetic edge. Yet, having worked on carbon nanotube safety for some years, I was intrigued to see the material in a spray-paint designed to coat objects that people may possibly come into contact with. It was, after all, only a few years ago that journalists were asking if carbon nanotubes were the next asbestos. 2 And while this is unlikely, concerns over the possible health impacts of the material persist. Safety concerns of purposely manufactured carbon nanotubes began in the 1990’s.

Due to their widespread incorporation into a range of biomedical and consumer products, the ingestion of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) is of considerable concern to human health. However, the extent to which AgNPs will be modified within the gastric compartment of the gastrointestinal tract is still poorly understood. Studies have yet to fully evaluate the extent of physicochemical changes to AgNPs in the presence of biological macromolecules, such as pepsin, the most abundant protein in the stomach, or the influence of AgNPs on protein structure and activity. Herein, AgNPs of two different sizes and surface coatings (20 and 110 nm, citrate or polyvinylpyrrolidone) were added to simulated gastric fluid (SGF) with or without porcine pepsin at three pHs (2.0, 3.5, and 5.0), representing a range of values between preprandial (fasted) and postprandial (fed) conditions. Rapid increases in diameter were observed for all AgNPs, with a greater increase in diameter in the presence of pepsin, indicating that pepsin facilitated AgNPs aggregation. AgNPs interaction with pepsin only minimally reduced the protein's proteolytic functioning capability, with the greatest inhibitory effect caused by smaller (20 nm) particles of both coatings. No changes in pepsin secondary structural elements were observed for the different AgNPs, even at high particle concentrations. This research highlights the size-dependent kinetics of nanoparticle aggregation or dissolution from interaction with biological elements such as proteins in the gastrointestinal tract. Further, these results demonstrate that, in addition to mass, knowing the chemical form and aggregation state of nanoparticles is critical when evaluating toxicological effects from nanoparticle exposure in the body.

How easy is it for people to learn about nanotechnology through the Internet? Andrew D. Maynard looks at some of the challenges and opportunities.

Consumer exposure to silver nanoparticles (AgNP) via ingestion can occur due to incorporation of AgNP into products such as food containers and dietary supplements. AgNP variations in size and coating may affect toxicity, elimination kinetics or tissue distribution. Here, we directly compared acute administration of AgNP of two differing coatings and sizes to mice, using doses of 0.1, 1 and 10mg/kg body weight/day administered by oral gavage for 3 days. The maximal dose is equivalent to 2000x the EPA oral reference dose. Silver acetate at the same doses was used as ionic silver control. We found no toxicity and no significant tissue accumulation. Additionally, no toxicity was seen when AgNP were dosed concurrently with a broad-spectrum antibiotic. Between 70.5% and 98.6% of the administered silver dose was recovered in feces and particle size and coating differences did not significantly influence fecal silver. Peak fecal silver was detected between 6- and 9-h post-administration and <0.5% of the administered dose was cumulatively detected in liver, spleen, intestines or urine at 48h. Although particle size and coating did not affect tissue accumulation, silver was detected in liver, spleen and kidney of mice administered ionic silver at marginally higher levels than those administered AgNP, suggesting that silver ion may be more bioavailable. Our results suggest that, irrespective of particle size and coating, acute oral exposure to AgNP at doses relevant to potential human exposure is associated with predominantly fecal elimination and is not associated with accumulation in tissue or toxicity.

When it comes to safety, the jury's still out on which nanoparticle characteristics we should be measuring. But, as Andrew D. Maynard explains, there's a rich history dating back over a hundred years on how we measure them.

Power-frequency magnetic field exposure science as it relates to men and couples have not been explored despite the advantage of this information in the design and interpretation of reproductive health epidemiology studies. This analysis examined the distribution and temporal variability of exposures in men, and the correlation of exposures within couples using data from a longitudinal study of 25 men and their female partners recruited from an infertility clinic. The average and 90th percentile demonstrated fair to good reproducibility, whereas the maximum showed poor reproducibility over repeated sampling days, each separated by a median of 4.6 weeks. Average magnetic field exposures were also strongly correlated within couples, suggesting that one partner's data could be used as a surrogate in the absence of data from the other for this metric. Environment was also an important effect modifier in these explored matters. These issues should be considered in future relevant epidemiology studies.

Emerging technologies need to be developed responsibly if their benefits are to outweigh any potential risks. Yet do entrepreneurs really have the luxury of grappling with future consequences from the get-go, asks Andrew D. Maynard.

ndrew D. Maynard considers the challenges of ensuring the responsible development and use of converging technologies.