Silver has proven to be effective in killing bacteria as well as in preventing foul odor in clothes. That’s why silver of nanoparticles are now used in socks, and there are washing machines that can generate this particles. Also, wastewater treatment system use silver nanoparticles in removing ammonia.  A washing machine that used the same way of nanotechnology came under the scrutiny of the US Environment Protection Agency in 2006 for the very same issue. The washing machine supposedly used nanosized particles of a silver as an antibacterial agent on clothes against body odor.

Environment officials were worried because the discharge of this washing machine could prove fatal to aquatic life even at low concentrations. Because of this, the EPA ruled that the machine was a pesticide because of it used silver ions during the washing process for the purpose of killing microbes.

The article’s juxtaposition of freakishly tall and thin women models and the beauty industries’ revenues of tens of billions of dollars is telling indeed. There is no money to be made by celebrating the variety of actual human beauty. Instead, the bucks come from persuading people, mostly women, that they are inadequate and then selling them some paint or portion that promises to cure that inadequacy. “Beauty” when treated this way, is an Orwellian horror.

The current quest of beauty reminds me of the eugenics movement a century ago. The fact that beauty is described by the evolutionary scientist cited in the article as a sign of fertility is strikingly similar to the classification of who was “Fit to Breed” and who was not. I am afraid it will gain respectability because of the genetic evidence that will be provided to demonstrate that one person is inferior to another.