While you've been worrying about the declining value of your home, whether your credit card company is going to "risk-reprice" your interest rate or about the war, or just about anything important, industry scientists have been worrying, and working day and night to "solve" the significant world problem of smelly socks. In the process, they've been meddling with infinitesimal, or "nano-sized" particles of silver whose properties they may not understand, and possibly creating bigger environmental problems. And, it isn't just socks. Industry scientists are also using nano products in your food, your detergents, your cosmetics and your sunscreen. In 2006, a coalition of environmental groups petitioned FDA

to protect consumers from products laced with nanoparticles. Consumer products that currently contain unregulated nanoparticles, including sunscreens and cosmetics used by children and adults could pose new dangers to human health and the environment.