Nanotechnology in food industry II: risk assessment and legislation

Currently, there is increasing use of nanomaterials in the food industry thanks to the many advantages offered and make the products that contain them more competitive in the market. Their physicochemical properties often differ from those of bulk materials, which require specialized risk assessment. This should cover the risks to the health of workers and consumers as well as possible environmental risks. The risk assessment methods must go updating due to more widespread use of nanomaterials, especially now that are making their way down to consumer products. Today there is no specific legislation for nanomaterials, but there are several european dispositions and regulations that include them. This review gives an overview of the risk assessment and the existing current legislation regarding the use of nanotechnology in the food industry.

Sweat Lodges in Iron Age Iberian Peninsula: New Data, Typologies and Interpretations

Three questions on the study of NO Iberian Peninsula sweat lodges are posed. First, the new sauna of Monte Ornedo (Cantabria), the review of the one of Armea (Ourense), and the Cantabrian pedra formosa type are discussed. Second, the known types of sweat lodges are reconsidered underlining the differences between the Cantabrian and the Douro - Minho groups as these differences contribute to a better assessment of the saunas located out of those territories, such as those of Monte Ornedo or Ulaca. Third, a richer record demands a more specific terminology, a larger use of archaeometric analysis and the application of landscape archaeology or art history methodologies. In this way the range of interpretation of the sweat lodges is opened, as an example an essay is proposed that digs on some already known proposals and suggests that the saunas are material metaphors of wombs whose rationale derives from ideologies and ritual practices of Indo-European tradition.