Professor Neil; Champness Professor of School of Chemical Nanoscience, University of Nottingham; Senior to the British Council on matters relating to Science and Engineering and a British Council Science Ambassador Nanotechnology: what is it and what can we achieve? First of all the definition of nanotechnologies was required: They are 'the design, characterisation, production and application of structures, devices and systems by control-ling shape and size at the nanometric scale'. It follows then that Nanoscience is: 'the study of phenomena and manipulation of materials at atomic, molecular and macromolecular scale where properties differ significantly from those at a larger scale.' When he told us that The Times no less had listed nanotechnology as ...'the 4th most likely thing to destroy mankind...' our attention was even more riveted. Neal posed the ever ripe question: who should decide what scientists do? Scientists? Governments? The people? We were also informed that currently the computer industry is struggling to keep up with nanotechnology and is using 45 nanometre particles. By 2015 we may have reached the 20 nanometre scale and silicone won't actually work below that level as the properties of materials change radically at this size. The realisation that in fact advances in computers are currently driven, not by scientists per se but by - the Games industry! Also it is the lack of computing power that at the moment holds back the speed with which nanotechnology research is carried out: that and the fact that microscopes also cannot cope with the minute sizes that are involved. If you try to imagine that there are more molecules in a glass of water than grains of sand on the earth you may start to get some idea! This talk at first seemed to be beyond comprehension when the chart showing the comparative sizes of nanometres was explained. Richard Feynman was the father of nanotechnology but queried what we could do with it... around 1959, but it was over 30 years before any real attention was paid. Neil then shocked us once more into the attempted realisation of the sizes we're being told about by saying that we could carry around all the printed information accumulated in the world since the Gutenberg Bible on a cube one tenth of a millimetre wide provided those words were written with atoms - but we can't do that - yet! Seeing that the nacre or pearly iridescent layer of some shells that are millions of years old are made of nano composites, as are the scales on the wings of butterflies were enough to boggle the brain. He showed a photo of a Roman Cup, the Lycurgus Cup from 400 AD, which when illuminated shows the glowing created by the same qualities. Then we wondered where on earth was nanotechnology found in our everyday lives? Well, how about in shampoos, self cleaning windows used on the enormous skyscraper buildings made of glass? We were tantalised by the idea of the possibility of self cleaning bathrooms! On a more medial level, so far in experiments nanotechnology has been used to restore the sight of hamsters and this has raised hopes for possible repairs to the spinal cord and help for stroke victims. Clinical trials are due to start in five years or so. Also in the computing industry micro-machined silicon is to be replaces by nano-machined devices e.g. sensors.