August 13, 2013 10:08 IST Nanotechnology is appearing in all sorts of places you might not expect. Here are some of the products benefiting from nano innovations. Nanomedicine In the medical field, wound dressings or surgical equipment coated in nano-silver marks only the start of developments.

Researchers in Malaysia are asking whether existing legal and regulatory frameworks in Southeast Asia are robust enough to consider the safety issues surrounding the technology. Hailed by some as the "next industrial revolution", nanotechnology is likely to have far reaching impacts on every aspect of our lives, from the clothes we wear to the medicines we take.

A brain-friendly extracellular matrix environment of neuronal cells that contain very little foreign material has been developed by a multi-institutional team, including Lohitash Karumbaiah of the University of Georgia's Regenerative Bioscience Center. These by-design electrodes are shielded by a covering that the brain recognizes as part of its own composition and are used instead of neural prosthetic devices--which suffer from immune-system rejection.