Nanotechnology: Armed resistance. Under attack: policemen stand guard outside the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education after a letter bomb exploded there in August 2011. The shoe-box-sized package was addressed to Armando Herrera Corral. It stated that he was the recipient of an award and it was covered in official-looking stamps. Herrera, a computer scientist at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico City, shook the box a number of times, and something solid jiggled inside. What could it be? Aceves sat down at his desk to tear the box open. The next day, an eco-anarchist group calling itself Individuals Tending Towards Savagery (ITS) claimed responsibility for the bombing in a 5,500-word diatribe against nanotechnology that it published online.
Nature Podcast Reporter Leigh Phillips talks about anti-science violence in Mexico. The incident had precedent. Closing ranks One year on from the bombing at Monterrey Tec, the repercussions are still being felt. Technology backlash. "Individuals Tending To Savagery" Anti-Technology Group Sent Bomb To Monterrey Technological Institute Professsors. MEXICO CITY — A radical group that opposes nanotechnology has has claimed responsibility for at least two bombing attacks on researchers in Mexico and it praises the "Unabomber," whose mail-bombs killed three people and injured 23 in the United States. A manifesto posted Tuesday on a radical website mentions at least five other Mexican researchers whose work it opposes, and lauded Theodore Kaczynski, who is serving a life sentence for bombs that targeted university professors and airline executives.
It was issued in the name of a group whose title could be translated as "Individuals Tending Toward the Savage. " Mexico State prosecutors' spokesman Sonia Davila said authorities are investigating the authenticity of the manifesto, but said its description of how the dynamite-stuffed pipe-bomb was constructed matched evidence found at the scene of a small explosion Monday at Monterrey Technological Institute's campus in the State of Mexico, on the outskirts of the capital. Nanotechnology terrorism in Mexico? « FrogHeart. The nano terrorism trial in Switzerland concludes (my July 25, 2011 posting) while Mexico seemingly has an outbreak of nano terrorism. According to one account, there were two incidents this week, one at Mexico’s National Polytechnical Institute on Tuesday, August 9, 2011 (another account notes that there were previous incidents in April and May 2011 targeting the same professor but does not mention an August 9 attempt) and a more serious one (two professors were injured) at the Monterrey Technological Institute (the campus on the outskirts of Mexico City) on Monday, August 8, 2011.
The group identified as likely culprits (a partially identified note was found at the scene of the August 8 incident) is called, in English, ‘Individuals Tending to Savagery (ITS)’. They have attacked academics before and are known for opposing nanotechnology experiments. One of the injured professors works in the field of robotics and the intended target of the August 9 (?)
Individuals Tending To Savagery « FrogHeart. Last year in an Aug. 11, 2011 post I covered some stories about terrorism and nanotechnology in the aftermath of a major bombing in Mexico where two scientists were injured. Leigh Phillips has written a substantive news feature focusing largely on the situation in Mexico. From the Aug. 29, 2012 news feature (open access) in the journal Nature, Nature assesses the aftermath of a series of nanotechnology-lab bombings in Mexico — and asks how the country became a target of eco-anarchists.The shoe-box-sized package was addressed to Armando Herrera Corral. It stated that he was the recipient of an award and it was covered in official-looking stamps. Herrera, a computer scientist at the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education in Mexico City, shook the box a number of times, and something solid jiggled inside. What could it be? As was reported at the time, an eco-anarchist group calling itself ‘Individuals Tending Towards (or To) Savagery’ laid claim to this ‘achievement’.
Jail sentences for attackers of IBM nanotechnology facility of Switzerland « FrogHeart. I hoped to get this final update about the trio who tried to bomb an IBM nanotechnology facility in Switzerland posted sooner. The three individuals who were held and tried last week were sentenced to three years in jail. From the July 22, 2011 news article by Jessica Dacey on swissinfo.ch, A 26-year-old Swiss-Italian from Ticino and an Italian couple aged 29 and 34 were found guilty by the Federal Criminal Court of conspiring to destroy the IBM centre in Rüschlikon, near Zurich, while it was under construction.They were also found guilty of importing explosives into Switzerland, then illegally hiding and transporting them.
…The three detainees were caught last year about 3km from the IBM facility in possession of 476 grams of explosives and other components needed to build an improvised explosive device.Also found in their car were 31 letters claiming responsibility for the planned attack in the name of a group calling itself ELF Switzerland Earth Liberation Front. Total Liberation "[Photos] Claim shipping package-bomb professor at the Technological Institute of Superior Studies of Monterrey, Mexico. Nota por LT: A estas alturas y por el tiempo que este sitio de propaganda (ahora liberaciontotal.lahaine.org, antes liberaciontotal.entodaspartes.net) lleva publicando reivindicaciones (comunicados) que nos son enviadas al mail, nos parece necesario volver a hacerlo, dada la estupidez de periodistas y ciudadanos mexicanos que han descargado su frustración en nuestro mail (por lo demas muy chistosos) creyendo que este sitio se hace responsable del ataque a la universidad, como si desde $hile se fueran a realizar acciones a México… Comunicado: El continuo desarrollo de la tecnología empeorar la situación.
Cuanto más crezca el sistema, más desastrosos serán los resultados de su fracaso. Los ingresos atribuibles directamente a la nanotecnología han venido creciendo a niveles de 42% entre el 2006 y el 2011, y para finales del 2011 se estima, genere ingresos por más de 19,000 millones de dólares (a). Ingeniería en biotecnología-nanotecnología. Individuals Tending Towards Savagery — JuriScientia. I am no particular fan of the monarchy, but Prince Charles was given a bad rap in 2003 when he called for the Royal Society to consider the environmental and social risks of nanotechnology. “My first gentle attempt to draw the subject to wider attention resulted in ‘Prince fears grey goo nightmare’ headlines,” he lamented in 2004. Indeed, while yet somewhat misguided, the Prince’s efforts to draw attention to these issues were genuine and not far from mainstream perceptions that scientists sometimes become so absorbed with their discoveries that they pursue them without sober regard for the potential consequences.
A copy of his article can be read here, in which he claims never to have used the expression “grey goo,” and in which he makes a reasonable plea to “consider seriously those features that concern non-specialists and not just dismiss those concerns as ill-informed or Luddite.” [A]ssembler-based replicators will therefore be able to do all that life can, and more.