Nanotechnology has been entering pop culture consciousness for decades. Marketers have sold products such as the iPod Nano (a mobile media player) and the nano car in India^[1][]while storytellers have given us nanobots in US television programmes such as 'Stargate'^[2][and nano-oriented novels such as Neal Stephenson's 'Diamond Age'^[[3] (optioned by US movie star George Clooney's production company for a movie^[4]). Lately, this action is concurrent with nanotechnology products entering the marketplace.

A lot more pervasive than most of us realize, there were over 600 nanotech products listed in the Project for Emerging Nanotechnologies database, as of April 2008, with a rate of three to four new products being added every week (in the US and presumably elsewhere). Many of these products are meant for consumers. The database of 600 includes nine nanotechnology toothpastes available in stores. (e.g. Swissdent Nanowhitening Toothpaste with 'calcium peroxide in the form of nanoparticles'.)^[[5]]

Pop culture purveyors include scientists and activists along with the marketers and the storytellers. Scientists, like marketers, want to engage the public imagination and foster positive feelings so that we will support funding for their work or buy their products. Activists engage the public imagination in a bid to alert people to risks and potential problems. Storytellers act both as advocates presenting utopian possibilities and devil's advocates noting potential dystopias, sometimes all in the same story. A powerful example of a pop culture myth being fused with scientific progress and resultant concerns is the 'frankenfood' story. (For more about frankenfood, under Jump points, click on Activists, and from that page click on Frankenstein and frankenfoods).

Pop culture provides many, many venues for viewing nanotechnology.

Jump points

Activists get in on nano action

Marketers put the buy in nano

Scientists play too 

Storytellers create nano