Better watch your backside ... beware the pants

Hazards Magazine should at least get some points for creativity -- not only for this wonderful image of Alec Guinness in a 1951 film about self-cleaning fabrics gone horribly, horribly wrong (insert Twighlight Zone-ish doo-doo-doo-doo music here), but also inventing new uses for carbon nanotubes: "By 2000 they were in commercial use as sports stadium flood lights," the article says.

I did not know that. In fact, I don't think it's true at all. Can anybody enlighten me (groan) on that one? The article is filled with the usual garbage -- turning what is not known into a reason to be afraid, be very afraid, and the little that is known into a reason to ban your nanopants. I like this line, though: "We might not know for certain whether nanotech will make you sick, but industry knows it can certainly make you rich."

Where exactly do I sign up for the "make you rich" plan? So far, in reality, nanotech has produced an aborted IPO and a few hacks who tell you that someday stain-proof pants will either save or destroy the world.