NANOTECHNOLOGY
Nanotechnology , or tiny tech, uses science and engineering to manipulate and create materials out of atoms and molecules at the ultra-small scale of less than 100 nanometers. A nanometer equals one billionth of a meter. It is one hundred-thousandth the width of a human hair, and the period at the end of this sentence is about 1 million nanometers in diameter. At the nanoscale level, conventional materials have unconventional and unexpected properties. Scientists plan to use atoms of abundant substances such as carbon, silicon, silver, titanium, and boron as building blocks to create everything from medicines and solar cells to automobile bodies. Nanomaterials are currently used in more than 800 consumer products and the number is growing rapidly. Such products include stain-resistant and wrinkle free coatings on clothes, odor-eating socks, self-cleaning coatings on sunglasses and windshields, sunscreens, deep-penetrating skin care products, and food containers that release nanosilver