made materials or objects that are about a thousand times smaller than the microtechnology we use routinely, such as the silicon chips of computers. Nanotechnology derives its name from the nanometre, which is a billionth of a metre. To get some measure of the scale of the materials and devices we are talking about, a human hair is about 80,000 nanometres wide. There are about 600 consumer products already on the market that use nanotechnology. They include nanoparticles of titanium dioxide added to sun creams to make them transparent instead of white, or tiny fragments of silver that are added to sports equipment to make them odor-free – the silver acts as a powerful anti-bacterial agent. Nanomedicine are also being developed to fight cancer and other fatal diseases. __
