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Do Nanotech Products Live Up to the Hype? (NPR)

Nanotechnology is the science of designing materials, atom by atom. It promises revolutionary applications for everything from the military to sports. NPR's David Kestenbaum investigates whether nanotech products already on the market are all they're cracked up to be. More here

Update: Kestenbaum couldn't get the precise amount of nanotubes in the Babolat tennis racket in time for the NPR report. When I assigned this story in March 2003, the company that supplied the tubes, Nanoledge, would only tell my correspondent that it was a small amount. What is sometimes lost in the rush to find a "nanotech product," by the way, is that Nanoledge hadn't really thought of the deal with Babolat as anything more than a little public-relations demonstration. As we reported almost two years ago: "The new products we are co-developing with our customers are not yet on the market, but we hope the first ones to be sold by 2006," he said, adding that the very first product of the company was a tennis racket developed with Babolat, "which does not include many nanotubes, but proved that we could get nanotubes out of the lab to the street."

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