Nanoscience and nanotechnology are the study and application of extremely small things and can be used across the other science fields, such as chemistry, biology, physics, materials science, and engineering. By extremely small I mean... extremely small... a sheet of paper is 100 000 nanometers thick. If the diameter of a marble was one nanometer, then one meter would be the size of the earth.
The field of nanotechnology originated from a talk by Richard Feynman in 1959 called "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom". The name "nanotechnology" was coined in 1974 by professor Norio Taniguchi from the Tokyo Science University. Today, scientists are able to take advantage of the enhanced properties that materials made at the nanoscale have over their conventional counterparts, such as, higher strength, lighter weight, increased control of light spectrum, and greater chemical reactivity. Research in nanotechnology has even made your golf balls fly straighter. A group of prostate cancer researchers at the University of Alberta are developing a sort of homing beacons on the nanoscale that can detect and deliver drugs straight to tumors. This expected to be significantly better than chemotherapy, which kills both healthy and cancerous cells. They expect to have an impact on patients in two years.
A third of the air pollution we emit comes form transportation. This pollution causes many negative effects on the environment and human health. The main pollutants from transportation that cause smog are carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and sulfur dioxide. These pollutants react with ammonia, water, and other compounds to produce the noxious vapors, ground level ozone, and small particles that comprise smog.
A simple way to prevent this air pollution is to use public transport. It is estimated that effective public transportation could cut emissions from transportation by over half by 2050, save $100 trillion, and prevent 1.4 million premature deaths. This article from the BBC describes these findings from a study at the University of California, Davis. The means to reach these goals involves what the authors of the study call, "a high shift scenario," in which a far greater proportion of urban passengers travel using a clean method of public transit, walk, or bike. However, without investments into clean methods of transportation, the report predicts that emissions from transportation will double by 2050.
I believe that public transportation is definitely a key to keep our cities clean. There are also, however, many other reasons why public transportation is a good idea. It decreases traffic and therefore decreases stress on people while driving. The alternatives of walking and biking are also keep us active and are good for our health.
So, do you think that we should increase investments into clean transportation?
