Nanosciences and nanotechnologies are developing at an incredibly rapid pace, promising a true revolution in a wide variety of fields where the ca-pability to manipulate matter at the atomic or (supra)molecular scale is essen-tial. This includes information processing systems, medical diagnoses and treatments, energy production and sustainable development, as well as a num-ber of more futurist ideas that, as yet, remain pure fiction. These develop-ments have begun to generate controversies and fears in the scientific commu-nity itself and the larger public. This article critically reviews the potential problems of an uncontrolled 'nanoworld' (grey goo, toxicity of nanoparticles, RFIDs, privacy, etc.) and the associated fears, as they appear in the literature. Suggestions to effectively manage controversies in this field, based on a socio-logical approach, are proposed
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