It's obvious that business and government have a bad case of DNA PTSD,or genetic shell shock, which is why they certainly won't get fooledagain when it comes to nanotechnology. I've heard the mantra many timesduring the past few years: "No More GMO." But the chanters wearpinstripes and not patchouli oil.

Public outcry (especially in Europe) against genetically modified organisms was the result of a determined effort betweenscience, business and government to completely misread the public. Ittook some serious brainpower, collusion and planning to so totally missthe point on what gets the masses all fired up, and the important rolepublic perception plays in the introduction of any new technology. Thebiggest mistake was the arrogant assumption that the public will acceptas inherently good anything that helps big biotech companies succeedand farmers increase their yields. What was missing from the equation,of course, was consideration of how the public "feels" about geneticmanipulation.

The right has a problem with "playing God," while the leftdoesn't want the corporate world messing with Mother Nature. The resultis that it could take a generation or two to undo the damage done topublic acceptance of scientific progress.

If you're curious about how and why this happened, PBS isrunning an excellent series on the history of DNA, and last night Icaught some of the episodethat deals with genetically modified organisms. The PBS site's "galleryof genetic modifications" is especially well done, stating the issuesconcisely and with flair.

It goes into the Flavr Savr tomato, created by thebiotechnology company Calgene, and accompanying "rumors and horrorstories [that] mention square tomatoes or tomatoes that glow in thedark."

By the time the Human Genome Project came along in the late'90s, the lesson had been learned. That's when the phrase "societal andethical implications" became part of the government lexicon.

I recently had a talk with Kevin Ausman,executive director of the Center for Biological and EnvironmentalNanotechnology at Rice University, who explained some of thishistorical context to me.