Can Nanotechnology Save The World?

Will nanotechnology kill everyone at some stage in the future? Or save the world?

The media’s focus on nanotechnology suggests that grey goo may kill everyone at some stage in the future. The reality is very different. We all carry and use nanotechnology every day in our smart phones, for the internet, in computers and for entertainment. I will show how nanotechnology techniques have come from the technology making the transistors that are in all our consumer products before presenting recent research where similar technology is being used for gas sensing for improved and safer working environments, to monitor pollution, to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, for security to make our lives safer and for personalised healthcare that could significantly improve our quality of life.
Prof. Douglas Paul is Director of the James Watt Nanofabrication Centre at the University of Glasgow after previously being at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Institute of Physics and was the recipient of the Institute of Physics President’s Medal in 2014. He presently or has sat on a number of counter terrorism and security scientific advisory committees in the Cabinet Office, MOD and Home Office. He undertakes research in nanofabrication, transistors, quantum devices, healthcare sensors and energy harvesting.

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