From AroundtheO:
UO and Oregon State University scientists were baffled. New testing of mixtures of nanoparticles had led to an 88 percent mortality rate in zebrafish embryos, after earlier testing had found the materials to be free of toxins.
Looking more extensively, they found that a new automated delivery system, meant to speed the mixing of products for testing in the fish, created a synergistic, or multiplying, effect that triggered the toxicity.
The method used to analyze what was happening, it turns out, could provide a solution that could keep the nanotechnology field moving forward, said study co-author Jim Hutchison of the UO Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Read full article here