The tiny becomes the gigantic; the vast is ultimately a function of the microscopic. One single-celled protozoan in the sea becomes two, then four, eventually billions -- and becomes a red tide, transforming large parts of the Gulf of Mexico to a morass of scarlet poison. A hurricane front, hundreds of miles across, sweeps mightily over that same sea elsewhere, carrying vast clouds of flood-rain in its juggernaut walls of wind -- but a hurricane is ultimately made up of individual molecules, sub-microscopically minute atmospheric particles interacting in gargantuan complexity, the sum of the parts becoming …Hurricane Andrew. And of course a simple spring-shower rain cloud -- a good thing, usually -- is made up of many individual raindrops.

The same dynamic is seen in the works of humanity …which should become especially dramatic when nanotechnology starts showing real interactivity with our lives. Right now it’s more than theoretical -- but less than practical. Every day nanotech, however, gets closer to becoming a practical reality. Science writer Carl Hall reports on the work of a team of scientists at the University of California at Santa Barbara -- collaborating with Japanese scientists -- who’re using a two-story-tall electronic microscope (a gigantic device for delving into the tiny, you notice) to create nano-sized three-dimensional objects of etched glass, as well as chemical-trapping cages, molecular pores and other structural elements as small as one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair. Pores in the three-dimensional nanodevice could be used as holding tanks for useful enzymes. These could be used in tandem with biomolecular motors.

Which motors?

Cornell’s Carlo Montemagno reports that biomolecular motors -- driven by ATP, the fuel for our muscles -- can be used to spin microscopic propellers, demonstrating "how biological and engineered components can be linked with amazing precision" on a nanometric scale. According to Hall, it’s a prototype of hybrid bioengineered machinery that someday might be used to deliver drugs to individual cells in the body.

The Ernst and Young report compiled for the biotech conference in San Diego maintains that "biotechnology has the potential to be the defining industry during the decades ahead".

"If you look at history, and you see what happened when we made the transition from the agricultural era to the information age, this period has all the earmarks of being another big shift," says E&Y consultant Scott Morrison. And it’s primarily about DNA—a tiny molecule with a huge responsibility.

The report quotes nanotech visionaries Eric Drexler and Stuart Kauffman, who suggest that nanomachines will have to be "self organizing systems" guided by relatively intelligent internal mechanisms -- efficient remote control on a microscopic scale is difficult to envisage.

When it comes to man’s impact on the environment, thousands of small hits add up to a "hurricane" of consequences -- and catastrophe, in the negative sense, can be more than theory: California farmers have been exempt from much water-pollution regulation through a loophole that allows "toxic pulses" of pesticides. Despite the success of organic farming, the loophole assumes that pesticide use is necessary to California agriculture. And since it comes from individual farms in pulses, farmers claim it is relatively harmless and dilute -- but a little adds up to a lot over time, according to a petitions submitted to the Water Quality Control Board in Sacramento. Says reformist Jonathan Kaplan, "California growers have become a leading source of toxic pollution…the biggest source of pesticide pollution is the least regulated."

Pesticides -- many of which are closely related chemically to nerve gas -- have been found to impair 565 miles (910 kilometers) of rivers and creeks and 488,224 acres (197,574 hectares) of delta waters in Central California alone. They’re present at levels that kill invertebrates -- a vital part of the food chain -- and threaten drinking water supplies, birds and fish.

A 1998 study at the University of California at Davis showed that some pesticides are interfering with the reproduction of wildfowl and shorebirds; the same problem was found in the Great Lakes and Florida. California Urban Water Agencies found that water in the San Joaquin and Sacramento river basins was killing algae, invertebrates and fish.

Speaking of bug killer -- Aventis Incorporated has genetically engineered pesticides into corn seed it calls StarLink. Human reactions to Starlink, which has been recalled or blocked in the U.S.A., could range from simple rashes to fatal shock. StarLink is notorious -- but fewer people have heard that Aventis has asked the EPA to grant a "special four-year approval for human consumption" -- so they won’t lose their $100 million investment. But of course during those four years you’ll be eating pesticide-laden corn…

Every farmer thinks his contributions to pollution are small, unimportant. But they accumulate, they add up, one at a time, and combine with all the others. Emanations of CFCs also come one at a time -- and individually are harmless. But the minute becomes the gigantic: once used widely as refrigerants and in spray cans, CFC emissions by the millions, though coming one by one, added up to another planetary catastrophe. Since CFCs damage the ozone layer -- which we need to protect us from dangerous levels of ultraviolet rays -- they’ve been effectively outlawed. But that hasn’t stopped the outlaws from, believe it or not, "CFC smuggling". Between 1994 and 1997, 6,367 tons of CFC-12 and 24 tons of CFC-113 were smuggled across the U.S. border. According to the EPA, "illegal CFCs rank close to cocaine as some of the most profitable contraband coming across the U.S. border."

Nature has always been eager to demonstrate the power of the microscopic over the macroscopic -- as in, for example, the Black Plague’s decimation of a major segment of the human race. Fleas on rats carried the one-celled plague organisms -- and whole societies fell before them. Which is why, next time, I’m going to talk about the danger of major plagues in the 21^st century -- the warning signs have already begun.