I’ve long held the dissenting position on carbon nanotubes, and I work in a Materials Science & Engineering department which has a group working on nano.

They’re faddish, a buzzword, and popular with science journalists who never got much past washing testtubes, if that far. A couple of years ago, including “nano” in a proposal seemed to increase the likelihood of funding irrespective of merit.

These sorts of “X is the wave of the future” fads come and go in science– and this one seems to be on the way out. We’re seeing some areas where genuine progress has been made– mostly in functional applications, such as the “blacker than black” material, etc… and there may be some fine uses for them, carcinogen aside, inside electronics– as long as folk are careful. (After all, we already put a lot of nasty stuff in electronics.)

Anyway, so long as you’re not kidding… I feel your pain