io9
Right now you can buy over 600 consumer products that contain some kind of nanomaterial or nanotechnology, and it turns out that a lot of them are edible. The Emerging Nanotechnology Project has compiled a comprehensive list of consumer items that companies are billing as "nanotech," grouping them into categories like "health" (which includes food) and "electronics." Here you can see their chart showing the breakdown of which products you can buy that contain something that can be called "nano." The E-Nano site also lets you search the products for all kinds of keywords. Needless to say, you can find some pretty bizarre shit if you search under "food."
While there are several bizarre items in the nano-cookware category such as "antibacterial cookware," and the "nano silver teapot," the best items are the nano health supplements that just reek of futuristic quackery. How about the "LifePak Nano" supplement, that promises:
Lifepak® nano is a nutritional anti-aging program formulated to nourish and protect cells, tissues, and organs in the body with the specific purpose to guard against the ravages of aging. Lifepak® nano offers the highest bioavailability with a first-ever nanotechnology process and advanced levels of key anti-aging nutrients in a comprehensive formula.Yeah, you guessed it: "patent pending technology." And then there's the alarmingly-named "Canola Active Oil," which its manufacturer describes thusly:
This technology is called NSSL (Nano-sized self assembled structured liquids), which is a development of minute compressed micelles, which are called nanodrops. These minute micelles serve as a liquid carrier, which allows penetration of healthy components (such as vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals) that are insoluble in water or fats. The micelles are added to the food product, and thus pass through the digestive system effectively, without sinking or breaking up, to the absorption site. The minute micelles carry the phytosterols to the large micelles that the body produces from the bile acid, where they compete with cholesterol for entry into the micelle. The phytosterols enter the micelle, thereby inhibiting transportation of cholesterol from the digestive system into the bloodstream. This advanced technology was applied in the development of Canola Active oil, produced by Shemen Industries.Wow, really? I've always wanted to eat something with "self-assembling" as one of its attributes. Plus, doesn't this sound sort of like olestra?
You can search through the nano-product goldmine at the E-Nano Project for yourself.
Consumer Products [Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies]
Comments
I'm pretty sure oil is a fat, so they have developed a product that doesn't even work!
I'm still waiting for nanotube brain enhancement something-or-other.
I guess that explains why my crap is starting to look like legos...
@Log1c: Waiting for the snortable nano-neurons to make my brain super-fast.
NutraLease is the company using the Canola Active oil in their supplements.
Their website says this:
Copyright: NutraLease Ltd., Last updated: 15/06/04
OLD NEWS IS SO EXCITING!
Woohoo! We are Borg in T minus 10...9...8...
Micelles are pretty close to legitimate nanotech. Constructed of either natural components, the phopholipids that make up cell walls, or synthetic polymers, they're a major candidate for new drug delivery technologies. Their large cousins, liposomes, are already used in delivery tasks, although mostly in the lab. In and of themselves, they're entirely natural, and form any time you blend up cells. Oh, and they can only carry fat-soluble things in water- not things that are insoluble in both fat and water (nothing you want in your diet falls under that description anyway.)
(Full disclosure, my senior undergrad thesis was designing and synthesizing new polymers to make artificial micelles, with the eventual goal of a commercial drug-delivery vehicle.)
The products claims, however, sound like bunk. It is true that bile salts, in association with phospholipids and free fatty acids, form their own micelles in the gut to facilitate cholesterol and fat absorption. However, this system is very, very difficult to overload, and the phytosterols (plant-derived cholesterol) of ther supplement certainly isn't going to be able to fill up all the available micelles. There are drugs that act through a similar manner, such as colesevelam (brand name: WelChol) which block micelle reabsorption in the small intestine. However, one dose is six giant pills per day, and it can cause some rather nasty GI distress (diarhea, bloating, foul-smelling stool etc...).
(Further disclosure, I have a cardiologist mentor who's given promotional talks for Daiichi Sankyo for WelChol, and I once had a delicious free dinner at one of the talks.)
@Annalee Newitz: Damnit! Snortable! I didn't think of that, we could do it without needles!
I think we need some nanotubes to replace neurons, and nanotube linear actuators to replace muscles and BAM! NanoMan!
i think that perhaps we are straying from the pure and wondrous connotations of nano-stuff being machines at a small scale (and ideally self-replicating machines) rather than stuff that is just simply small and does interesting, yet inert-ish, things...
ohh- well no grey goo in the foreseeable...
@russdanger: WOW! What a concept! Can you imagine if you could get nanotech to restructure your fecal matter into a product? In a very wrong way you could be your own 3d printer!
But then theres all types of problems that jump into the picture. What if you ate at McDonalds and some kid gave you a nanotech virus to make you manufacture something. Or companies could pay you to manufacture items for them.
Okay thats all very very wrong, but possible.
@Castle1914: I do not want my ass to be a printer. That is all.
@Annalee Newitz: Hey russdanger started it.
It would come in handy on those long interstellar space voyages...
"Mr. LaForge, we need a new hyper-spanner."
"OK, Cap'm. just let me grab something to read in there.."
@russdanger: "Hey Maw! I'm crappin' legos!"
The Women's Bioethics Blog
@Annalee Newitz: Yeah! ... A scanner/printer would be funnier! Simply activate, and you eliminate the middleman! Celebrate by plastering self-made (and I mean self-made) photocopies of your ass around the office, classroom, home, and town!
@Ghede: hmm, scanner? That's a little tougher to accomplish unless you're tying into the eyes/brain. If you can tie into the brain, then you could defecate any object you could think of.
@Castle1914: I was actually just thinking of having a buttscanner. It would pretty much just print a 2d image of your butt, and change depending whether you were sitting or standing. Not sure how it would work, but it would be convenient. Slightly less so than shitting scissors.
@Ghede: Yeah I thought about the sharp object problem. I figure that the system would automatically encapsulate any dangerous bits so that it doesn't harm you.
Hang on a minute, I'm getting a fax.
@Annalee Newitz: Done.
"This Ain Supplio pencil lead from Pentel uses nanotechnology to release allegedly mind-expanding aromas, letting you smell your way to smartness while you scribble your meandering prose on a piece of paper."
"The fragrance is encapsulated using nanotechnology, where microscopic bubbles containing the fragrance are blended in with the lead. When you write, the fresh fragrance pops out of those tiny nanocapsules, filling the room with sweetness and enlightenment for all within noseshot."
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