By Tom Ashbrook

Two months ago, Berkeley, California became the first community in the country to regulate business that make or use nanoparticles. Nano is a minute unit of measure: a billionth of a meter, the tiniest element of the material world.

The nanotech industry is the molecular-level revolution that many are hoping will one day be as giant a boost to the US economy as steam and computers. Revolutionary from the atom up, nanotech products are already hitting the market, from laundry rooms, to sunscreen, to windshields. Everybody wants a piece of the action. But do you know what atoms are being re-engineered in your backyard?

Photo: Prostate cancer cells with red nanoparticles. (Photo: Omid Farokhzad and Robert Langer.)

Guests:

Barnaby Feder, reporter for The New York Times

Andrew Maynard, Science Advisor, Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Mark Ratner, Professor of Chemistry at Northwestern University

Krystyn Van Vliet, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT

Henrietta Davis, Cambridge, Mass. city counselor