WSJ is down with nano

A couple of Wall Street Journal editors must have been desperate for material, so they lowered their standards just long enough to let one of my opinion pieces slip through. But you have to be a subscriber to read it. Here's a teaser:

I'd like to tell a tale of wondrous wizards of science, brave business knights on Holy Grail quests and self-appointed sentries who declare by the hour that the end is nigh. And, naturally, there is also a prince and a great, gray mythical beast.

Let us start from the beginning.

Once upon the year 2000 at Rice University in Houston, a small group of chemists, bioengineers and environmental engineers met to compare notes on some exciting new work they were all doing with nanomaterials -- that is, substances smaller than 100 nanometers, or 100-billionth of a meter or . . . well, maybe this will help: Close your eyes and picture particles so small that you can line up between 5,000 and 50,000 of them widthwise on each strand of John Kerry's hair (or, about 500 on each of Dick Cheney's). More here

Update: A WSJ editor tells me it ran in the European print edition, but not in the United States, which has no "Business Europe" column. If any European readers come across it, drop me a note. I'll pay the postage for a copy. My 95-year-old grandpa doesn't read news online!

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