ON A snowy Friday last month, a small group of scientists, campaigners and others gathered in London’s Science Museum to hear Lord Sainsbury, the UK’s science minister, announce how the government plans to regulate nanotechnologies. The fact that the majority of visitors to the museum were oblivious to this excited cluster in their midst seemed only fitting: the great paradox of the science of the extremely small is that while it has generated much hype from those seeking to promote it and from those who fear its risks, much of the public has never heard of it.
So what is…
