Widespread Nanoparticles kill soil life

[auroraglacialis]

This is insane:

"Queen's researchers have discovered that nanoparticles, which are now present in everything from socks to salad dressing and suntan lotion, may have irreparably damaging effects on soil systems and the environment.
...
Millions of tonnes of nanoparticles are now manufactured every year, including silver nanoparticles which are popular as antibacterial agents...
...
We hadn't thought we would see much of an impact, but instead our results indicate that silver nanoparticles can be classified as highly toxic to microbial communities.

FACEPALM!
Who could have imagined that antibacterial agents actually kill bacteria?!?!

And the implications:

As plants are unable to fix nitrogen themselves and nitrogen fixation is essential for plant nutrition, the presence of these particular microbes in soil is vital for plant growth. The analysis of the soil sample six months after the addition of the silver nanoparticles showed negligible quantities of the important nitrogen-fixing species remaining

Charming. Really charming.

Anyone remember DDT? Or Contergan? Or any of the other ****ing failures that came from applying some new shiny technology on a large industrial scale without thinking or anything. Yeahs later someone thinks "Oh, maybe we should check if it kills life that we need" and bothers finally to check for it at least.

And by now the stuff is everywhere, even in Antarctica.

This is making me so sick!

EDIT: Misread the article - the particles are everywhere but Antarctica, so that is where they had to go to get pristine soil.