Infinitesimal particles inside our cosmetics, drugs, and processed foods are making their way into streams and oceans. There, they become a whole new food group for fish and other aquatic life. Although we treat them as harmless, the nanoparticles added to fish's diets may put them off their lunch altogether.
Manmade nanoparticles--bits of material built to be 300 microns across or smaller--have been booming over the last 10 to 15 years. In pharmaceuticals, they carry tiny doses of drugs into our bodies. In sunscreen, they protect our skin without creating an opaque white coating. Eddie Bauer uses them to make stain-repellent "Nano-Care" khakis.
But once these products have passed through our bodies or been washed off our skin, nanoparticles can journey out into the world, perhaps to be ingested by other organisms. And they don't travel alone. Like staticky socks, nanoparticles collect a coating of hangers-on as they pass through ...
