Re: FYINews: "Nanotubes Highly Toxic"

["James N Rose" <***>]

Dan,

Your thoughtful alternatives are appropriate.  I don't
have a preference, and really am not knowledgable to
talk to the issue.  I offered it only because it fits
the sentiments of this list, in that being curious about
what life is, how it arose through coordinated processes,
and coming to appreciate its extent and interconnected
specialness .. it is a short step to esteeming and valuing
it.

Science and humans will continue exploring .. even those
things which prove dangerous or deleterious.  Nanotubes
will be produced, inspite of caveats.  But the reality of
their danger to the extant natural millieu needs to be
right up front in of us as humanity moves forward.

We use 'dangerous' things in our lives all the time.
Your house is filled with poisons and toxins .. cleansers,
disinfectants, other chemicals .. but you don't run to remove
them from your life.  You use them cautiously and carefully.
You limit your exposure to them, and accept any tradeoff.

In a span of 30, 50, 70 years, if exposure to cleaning
fluids shortened your life by 5 days, that was a price
(willingly) paid, to avoid earlier death or illness
by exposure to a germ or bug.

My reason for sharing the news item was that I am particularly
skittish and alert to artificially imposed things which
are shown to block metabolism.  Our bodies accomplish that
all too well on their own, for example by chelation.  Certain
molecules link with atoms and molecules they can't get rid of
sometimes. Metabolic pathways get blocked and shunted.
The body metabolicly 'suffocates', rots, ages .. dies.

To hasten it by exposure to artificially built incompatible
micro-molecules just seems to be a fools errand in the quest
for other imagined 'improvements'.

Jamie
11/18/03