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Scientists are finding that particles that are barely there – tiny objects known as nanoparticles that have found a home in electronics, food containers, sunscreens, and a variety of applications – can breach our most personal protective barrier: The skin.

The particles under scrutiny by Lisa DeLouise, Ph.D., are almost unfathomably tiny. The particles are less than one five-thousandth the width of a human hair. If the width of that strand of hair were equivalent to the length of a football field, a typical nanoparticle wouldn’t even belly up to the one-inch line.

Korean scientists have used table salt to help them move closer to creating a porous silicon nanobomb that will literally blow up cancerous cells. Thermotherapy - that uses near infra-red (NIR) light to destroy cells - stopped being used in the 1990s, but thanks to new research is making a comeback as a possible alternative to currently available therapies for removing cancerous cells. Recently agents such as carbon nanotubes - that emit heat after irradiation with NIR - have been tried in combination with thermotherapy to kill cancer cells selectively.

Lisa DeLouise, Ph.D., an expert in porous silicon at the University of Rochester Medical Centre in the US, says 'nanoparticle thermotherapy is an emerging field with great potential for biomedical research'.

Nanoparticles may penetrate sun damaged skin causing concern about their increasingly widespread use in sunscreens, according to new research. In a paper published in Nano Letters, scientists at the University of Rochester found that quantum dot nanoparticles penetrated UV damaged skin more than non-compromised skin.