Nanoparticles Don't Scare Me, But They Give Me Nightmares

Someone asked me if I had read Prey by Michael Crichton. I have to admit I haven't, but I did check it out once from the library with every intention of inhaling it over a couple of cold, lonely, November weekends. As is usual in my life, work consumed me and I never got around to it. I read the jacket cover though, and I am sure I would enjoy spending some time in front of a gently crackling fire, a glass of 12-year old Glenfiddich in hand with some Pharaoh Sanders on the Hi-Fi, reading about the end of man. I liked the Andromeda Strain, as much for its technical and scientific accuracy as for its gripping examination of the psychology of scientists and physicians in extreme circumstances. But I don't lose sleep over the possibility of some alien virus falling to earth and nearly killing us all. Nanoparticles don't scare me either, but I do lose sleep over them all the time. Mostly I lay awake and mull over mistakes I made in lab, why my experiment failed, or what I need to get done in the morning. Sleep happens eventually, but never soon enough for me to get a solid 8 hours, which I need. After a few days of this in a row, the anxiety and stress have built up and sent me over the falls, so I drink myself to oblivion, get the sleep I need, and the process starts all over again. Maybe this is the nanoparticles plan, subtle and smart, to kill me off. Then again, I figure that I am in more danger from some suburban soccer mom in a very non-nanoscale Suburban on chatting on her cell-phone, yelling at her kids and not checking the cross traffic and making me into a human speed-bump, than anything that I work with. But who knows, maybe my core crosslinked nanoparticles are planning vengeance for cooking some of their mates with the 514 nm laser yesterday...