(na)No Luck A story of dust, prejudice and nanotechnology

By Adelina Mihaela Halchin

The sun gleamed joyfully above Great Britain when Dunst was

brought into our world. He was a particle of dirt, forged in the heart of

the ancient, continuously-eroding mountains of Scotland. Though

hardly visible for the human eye, Dunst gained a reputation among other dust particles for having the

great ambition of settling for the rest of his life on the newest building in the country. So once he caught a gale of wind, on he went on his

journey.

He travelled fast, passing in his gallop by other particles of dirt. He

heard all kinds of stories about grime which deposited on the

surfaces of architectural masterpieces, or on the edge of

the skyscrapers` roofs, thus living in serendipity among others of

their kin. But existing on a normal surface was not mighty enough for

Dunst! He wanted, by contaminating the most recent

building in the country, to laugh in humanity`s face that no matter

how advanced the technology is, nothing could possibly beat nature.

There were times in his journey when he and his dust pals gathered to tell horror stories, of rumours about fantastic

materials which did not allow dirt to stick to them after being splashed with water. There was a word that

everybody feared to say, a word that made their light bodies shiver with panic: nanotechnology. This strange entity was said to make buildings so super hydrophobic

that not even water particles adhered to them, and all the specs of dust were to roll into oblivion along with

rainwater. Of course, for

Dunst, these were all figments of the imaginations of the storytellers,

as he chose not to believe in such absurd fables.

Little did he know that the unfathomable hell for all dust particles was in reality extensively used all around the world and inspired by Mother Nature, since in Great Britain lotuses were not particularly widespread. The flowers made a name for themselves as a symbol of purity due to their leaves, naturally coated with nanoparticles of wax.

Dunst was about to discover how humanity learnt from the water repellency of the

lotuses when he reached his destination. As the wind

carried him above London, a futuristic-looking building

had just had its inauguration, thus ideal for

demonstrating his idea, though Dunst. He hit one of

the perfectly cleaned windows, and he marveled at the fact that he was the only dust particle on it! His

joy was momentary and fragile, however.

Heavy clouds quickly gathered and cold droplets of water started falling all around him, but he thought of himself as immune. He only panicking when he noticed that rainwater did not splash the glass as he expected it to do,

but instead it rolled in well-defined spheres. He looked up and saw a large sphere heading towards him and, trembling, tried to move

away from it. But the water drop caught him and spun him along the windows and the walls

of the building all the way to the pavement, where he joined other dirt specks, only to be

further carried in the sewage system.

What an unfortunate end for the mighty Dunst. His incredulousness in the intelligence of the people of the 21st century turned him into sewage material, everything because of nanotechnology. Self-cleaning surfaces may have been the end of Dunst, but they were certainly the beginning of the new era of the nano!The

End!