My friends and I were always into the alternative rock scene in college and I always found people with common tastes in music by the T-shirts they wore. T-shirts always represented to me another means of finding people that I might have something in common with or could easily strike up conversation with. I was thinking along the same lines with the Nanotech shirts. Chris (my graphic designer, partner and roommate) and I are hoping to start a lot of new dialogue and give people a symbol to represent their interests in Nanotechnology. I know a lot of folks are against sensationalizing nanotechnology, but we believe that its a good thing to excite people about science and technology.

So, they may just be a couple of roommates who thought it'd be cool to sell "nano" T-shirts, but it also sounds to me like they truly "get it." They know how an idea can really get a foothold in society, and it's rarely through official channels. It's happening right now: Completely under the radar of the government, the nanobusiness community and, yes, most of the media that cover nanotechnology, there is an independent nanotech movement. It is composed of  tiny, autonomous cultural ideas and associations that are self-assembling, and even self-replicating, until eventually it will become so pervasive that it will be impossible to ignore.

And that's when those who represent nanotech interests in government, business and the media will finally look beyond their insular world of scientists, businesspeople and self-congratulatory speeches and prizes to see, much to their surprise, that nanotechnology became embedded in popular thought and mythology without any guidance from them. Depending upon the nature of the nano meme, the "official" nanotech community will either launch campaigns against it, or take credit for its existence.

More on Howard Lovy's NanoBot.