Hearing Held into Nanotechnology Initiative Reauthorization - AzoNano, Australia
As a step towards the reauthorization of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), the House Science and Technology Committee held a hearing today to review the program and proposed draft legislation. As the Committee of jurisdiction, the body has held many hearings throughout this and past Congresses to improve the program in an effort to maintain the U.S.’s competitive lead in nanotechnology.

Silver tongues: Regulators are looking more closely at nanotechnology claims - The Economist, UK
Silver can be made into a far more potent bactericide. Companies have quickly seized on this idea to produce a wide variety of products, from clothes to soap and even chopsticks, containing silver nanoparticles. The claim is that they destroy germs. But silver can also accumulate in the environment and, at certain levels, prove toxic. Nor is the general safety of nanoparticles fully understood, not least because they can react in novel ways.

Are multi-walled carbon nanotubes more like asbestos than we thought? - Environmental Defense, USA
A new study suggests that the analogy may be even stronger than we thought: It may extend to the capacity to cause mesothelioma, the rare form of cancer associated with exposure to asbestos. Researchers developing and using multi-walled carbon nanotubes, especially for applications that could yield long-term exposures, such as incorporation into hip prostheses, need to proceed with extreme caution and carefully assess the potential for carcinogenicity from their devices.