So now we can use silver (silver?) to preserve food. That and other amazing nano ideas are detailed in this Ziff Davis report on the latest in nanotechnology says

.“Finely milled silver, with particles mere microns in diameter, can attack the RNA of microbes, preventing them from reproducing…”

Apparently, tests with cut strawberries and a vegetable were very successful. The implications are promising–imagine being able to preserve fresh fruit and get it to places in the world that can’t grow it? Or keeping food fresh for soldiers? I’m sure whatever they come up with, it’ll beat the hell out of the old C-rations our fathers had to suffer through during World War II.

But the cautions are many. Ingesting silver along with your strawberries and cream could involve a host of unknown consequences. And the next concern that hit me was that preserving the substance of a food doesn’t necessarily mean you’re preserving the nutrients unaltered and/or undiminished.

Wow, the learning curve on nano stretches from here to far on the other side of the lives of most of us today. It’s almost as if we were back in the times when pasteurizing came along. We’re just babes in this new exciting and dangerous stretch of woods. But babes or not, we’ve got to bring along very adult attitudes as to how we’ll use the amazing powers we discover.