Attitudes to nanotechnology may be determined by religious and cultural beliefs, suggest researchers writing in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

They say religious people tend to view nanotechnology in a negative light.

The researchers compared attitudes in Europe and the US and looked at religious and cultural backgrounds.
They say the findings have implications for scientists and politicians making policy decisions to regulate the use of nanotechnology.

I’m old enough to remember how it was before Medicare. My mother-in-law was in declining health and my wife and I were seeing to her care. On one visit to her family doctor, a golfer whom we called Buzzie, he told us, “Boy, if she only had the money we could give her the treatment she should have.” We left him for a nice, non-Jewish doctor I had met on the police beat.

Yet honestly, even as a journalist in Texas, I was too young, callow and full of myself to follow the Medicare battles in the Congress or appreciate its importance when it became law in July 1965. Since then, I have used thousands of dollars of Medicare’s money. I’ve written endlessly about Medicare in my day job, and I consider myself an expert.

But only recently have I been reminded how Lyndon Johnson prodded conservative lawmakers to give millions of older, disabled and poorer citizens the nation’s first universal national health care insurance, Medicare and Medicaid.

I’m sure you have seen the silly pictures: yesterday’s New York Times ran an article entitled “Detroit churches pray for God’s bailout,” accompanied by a photo of a prayer meeting at Greater Grace Temple, a Pentecostal Church, where worshipers surrounded three SUVs (one for each of the big three automakers, though the SUVs at least were hybrids…). What a waste of human energy and potential, and what a bucket of hypocrisy. These are hard times for many families in the United States and across the world, and my heart sinks when I see once again how superstition is the common resort of people who feel so little control over their own lives.

It is like a rather underperforming colleague finally throwing in the towel - it has been much anticipated but when the end comes it is a surprise nonetheless, while the office heaves a collective sigh of relief. The UK is to evacuate its forces from southern Iraq, handing over to the US. I fear they will not be much missed by the Iraqis or the US. Where did it all go wrong?