As companies gear up to make industrial quantities of nanomaterials, worries mount about the safety of these products should they end up contaminating the environment. A new study indicates that buckyballs, one of the most well-studied nanomaterials, undergo considerable changes in different aquatic environments. So, their effects probably will vary from place to place.
A buckyball is made up of 60 carbon atoms arranged into the shape of a miniature soccer ball. How buckyballs react in natural aquatic ecosystems is a matter of special concern because laboratory studies have shown that this nanomaterial can damage brain cells of fish (SN: 4/3/04, p. 211: Tiny Trouble: Nanoscale materials damage fish brains).