Mad Russians

Photographer Mike Rogoff posted this picture on Flickr, with the caption:

Christian fanatics picketing against nanotechnology, next to Marx monument, Moscow. I was nearly beaten by them as they were angry with me shooting. Crazy :) More here

Mike posted this interesting picture back in August. I lost touch with the nano news world last summer, so I don't know what this protest was all about.

I'm assuming they used the usual religious-fanatic logic about man "playing God?" Perhaps one of my Russian readers could translate the sign in the background.

Backgrounder
The Case Of God v. Nanotech
Playing God with Monsters
A new wrinkle for Eddie Bauer

Pinhead Angels: The Video

Remember THRONG (The Heavenly Righteous Opposed to Nanotech Greed)? I'm not sure, but I think they won the Nobel Peace Prize a year or so ago for their incredibly clever protest against nanotechnology. Employing a different tactic than their anti-nano cousins, THONG, a group of fully-clothed "angels" performed their street theater at a nanotech conference in Buckinghamshire, U.K.

This video harkens back to December 2004, angelic chants of "no no nano nano no, no no no nano no no," sage words like, "We believe that nanotechnology is going to be a major can of worms. It's going to release all sorts of harms onto society and onto the environmnent" and the group's presentation of its "can of worms" award to Harry Swan, an ex-Monsanto official and now a nano-evangelist.

Backgrounder
Nanotech protest
Pinhead Angels

Groups call for moratorium on nano-named products

NANOLAND, April 10, 2006 (NBN) -- The aerosol form of Magic Nano, a glass/ceramic sealant that likely contains no actual nanotechnology, has been recalled in Germany after customers were reported hospitalized.

The illnesses were apparently related to the fine mist created by the aerosol -- an effect reported in similar products that do not contain "nano" in their names or marketing materials -- and not with the "nanotechnology" that the product does not contain.

Anti-nanotech activists say the recall is proof that even use of the word "nano" in packaging and marketing is hazardous to consumers.

"We are expanding our call for a moratorium on all nanotech products to cover all products that even use nano in their name," said a spokesperson for a coalition of anti-nanotech organizations. "We believe that when it comes to scary, new technologies that we do not understand, you cannot take too many precautions."

In a related development, area woman Nina Pood is suing Apple Computer, claiming that the IPod Nano -- an anagram of her name -- was created specifically to send mind-controling nanobots into her brain through earbuds that play nothing but Barry Manilow's "Mandy." Apple CEO Steve Jobs denies the allegations, saying, "If Ms. Pood would simply purchase another song at our online iTunes store, she could listen to the entire album for only $9.99."

NanoBot News will stay with this story as long as it remains ridiculous.

A new wrinkle for Eddie Bauer

Blogger's note:Here's the raw, infiltered press release from the anti-nano protesters we just can't keep our eyes off of. The pictures are a NanoBot exclusive.

CHICAGO, Ill. — On Saturday, at 1 pm, dozens of concerned citizens joined the public health group THONG outside of the Eddie Bauer flagship store on Michigan Avenue to protest the company’s use of untested “nano-fibers” in their “nanotex” clothing line which also boasts the “Teflon” label and are “wrinkle free”. THONG is a local Chicago public-interest group that uses nudity to educate people on detrimental threats to human health and the environment.

“We’re out here naked so people can SEE THE PROBLEM, nanotech is such a radical and unpredictable new technology, like biotech, that it takes something highly visible, like a naked body, to get people to focus on the need to stop corporations from using humans as guinea pigs for new, untested, and unstable new technologies!” said Kiki Walters of THONG.

“The Royal Society in the UK has issued their own report, recommending regulation to control exposure to nanotechnologies. We believe they have a point to make. We just wanted to make it even more obvious to people.”

Eddie Bauer’s line of water and stain resistant clothing utilizes nanotechnology, a radically new and untested technology that involves the manipulation of matter at the scale of the nanometer (nm), which is one-billionth of a meter. At this scale, materials behave differently than their larger counterparts, and can possibly be more reactive and toxic, posing unknown risks to human health and the environment. Though nanoparticles are not regulated by any government in the world, many products containing them are already on the market, including food, clothing, cosmetics and sunscreens, without proper safety testing for toxicity, posing risks to the health of consumers and retail workers.  Nano-Tex™ clothing contains nano-fibers coated with Teflon particles. Nanoparticles have been found to penetrate the blood brain barrier. Inhalation of many types of nanoparticles have been proven to be toxic to animals in lab tests. 

“Even the largest re-insurance company in the world, Swiss RE, has stated that they will not insure nanotech at this time.  At least this major financial player has openly admitted the potential toxicity of nanoproducts, and that these products present what they call long latent unforeseen claims.” said Natalie Eggs, another THONG member.

Update: For those who prefer video over stills, a previous THONG protest is included in this Quicktime movie.

This just in: Nano-Tex Adds Knits, Outerwear to Its Performance Apparel Roster (MarketWire)

Backgrounder
Resistance is nubile
Nano industry hits bottom
NanoVlog
UK misses chance to defuse nanotox issue
Pogue does the pants
Playing hardball with nano pants
UK sets up a fragmented nanopolicy
Nanopants miss the Bullseye

Resistance is nubile

My source within smelling distance of T.H.O.N.G. (Topless Humans Organized for Natural Genetics) informs me that Earth First! Journal is running a piece in the print edition on the group's anti-nanotech nudity at the NanoCommerce conference in Chicago a couple of months ago.

The headline, my source says, is: "Resistance To Nanotech Grows." It begins with: "People around the world are taking notice of the fledgling nanotechnology industry's potential for atom-level control of virtually everything." The last paragraph reads: "Nanotechnology has been billed as the solution to world hunger and disease, but it is no more likley to produce these results than the biotech industry. Hopefully, these recent actions are a harbinger of massive resistance to this new threat to freedom and biodiversity."

In addition, the group has posted some priceless photos of the Thongian action and reaction. Enjoy.

     

NanoBot Backgrounder
Pinhead Angels
'Nano? We don't need no stinking nano'
Wanted: Independent nano watchdog
Nano industry hits bottom
NanoQuiz

Pinhead Angels

Last year, the holidays brought us "How the Schmirk Stole Nanotechnology." This season, the role of NanoScrooge is played by Angels Against Nanotech, which recently presented Harry Swan, an ex-Monsanto official and now a nano-evangelist, with its "Can of Worms Award."

Regular NanoBot readers already know how I believe that true nanotech is actually the ultimate in "organic" and environmentally friendly solutions to pollution and disease, so I won't repeat it here. Remember, I'm just the heavenly messenger, folks. A Nano-hymn: Enjoy.

A Nano-hymn

Hark the throng of angels sing,
nanotech's a dodgy thing
Piece by piece the world defiled
Godlike science running wild
Careful al ye people wise
Nano could be your demise
We will not cooperate
With your corporate nano-state
Hark the throng of angels sing,
nanotech's a dodgy thing

NanoBot Backgrounder
Nano industry hits bottom
'Nano? We don't need no stinking nano'
'All we have is speculation on toxicity'

'Nano? We don't need no stinking nano'

update and links re: anti-nanotechnology protest in leeds (Leeds Indymedia)

INFO ON PROTEST: On Friday 12th there was an action against Nanotechnology/Convergence Technologies at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. A report was posted but was incomplete.

The protest took 3 main parts. Firstly, an information gathering exercise to gain further details of who is involved in what, for future actions. Secondly, the hall was visited and made extremely unplesant by a well-known substance for stinking out conferences: comfrey in water left to rot for a couple of months, and fish bait. visitors to the hall an hr after said people were holding their noses and not staying, and the smell was hideous. Leaflets were also given out. The third aspect was the seizing of the tannoy and a communique being read out. This coincided with a talk on nanotech which drowned it out, and was heard in every room through the museum. Leaflets were also scattered down. Two of these people were held by security until the police arrived, took down the name and address and date of birth that the two claimed were theirs, quick check to make sure there was no warrant on the names given, and then released.

The communique read:

Nanotechnology is the newest weapon against diversity, rebellion, difference, autonomy and freedom. The US military is, of course, the biggest investor as it tries to ensure total domination of all life on the planet. The British government has also invested £90 million in nanotechnology and most industries and universities* are developing interests in the field.

Genetic engineering was recognised as having massive social and ecological implications and this ensured worldwide resistance against it. Nanotechnology, which has the ability to transform all matter, has far more dramatic effects and needs drastic action to confront this new assault on diversity of life. More here

NanoBot Backgrounder
Nano industry hits bottom
'Mongrel dogs who teach' *
WSJ is down with nano

Nano industry hits bottom

Your NanoBot has been working tongue-in-cheek to get the story behind this story.

Apparently, a nanotech conference in Chicago this week was briefly disrupted by a group calling itself T.H.O.N.G. (Topless Humans Organized for Natural Genetics). The calling card above was handed out at the event, although I am told that they showed up sans thongs. "Plenty of Room at this Bottom" is, of course, an homage to the famous Richard Feynman speech that inspired the nano revolution.

The background to this is that nanotech is being painted with the broad "biotech" brush, and lumped in there with genetic engineering. These protesters have demonstrated in the buff against genetic engineering before ("I'd rather be naked than eat biotch foods.") More proof that the anti-biotech movement, complete with its street theater branch, has now turned its attention to nanotechnology.

I'm still working to get to the ... um ... bottom of this story.

Update: A source close to the investigation (a bit too close for this source's comfort) has given me more details:

The time was cocktail hour. Then, there they were, surrounded by six or eight nanonudeguerrillas, men and women alike wearing nothing but their cold, battle-hardened stares on top and tiny shorts on the bottom. Then, as my eyewitness recounts the horror: "One of them turned to us and said something like, 'Hello NanoCommerce!' Then all of them dropped their pants and they had teeny teeny nanoscopic thongs. On their bodies they had painted phrases like 'plenty of room at THIS bottom'(with an arrow) and 'no nano'"

And like the well-disciplined, and apparently quite trim, gang that they are, they were gone in 30 seconds.

Why, for the love of G-d, Madonna and all things holy, why would they inflict this punishment on a group of nanotech businesspeople? My source can only guess:

"It seemed pretty obvious to me, however, that they were reacting to nano's use in genetics and proteomics. Kind of a case of attacking the tools rather than the use to which the tools can be put...but anyway..." Then, the voice trails off as the survivor is guided away by psychologists trained to deal with the human wreckage that remains in the aftermath of such disasters.

Nano not hep to this cat

Gordon Wozniak, who the Contra Costa Times describes as the Berkeley City Council's "resident scientist," has a colorful way of telling his fellow council members not to worry about unfounded fears that stray nanoparticles will escape the molecular foundry being built at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

"Nanoscience is not something new or radical. This is existing science that's been hyped as 'nanoscience' to get money from the federal government. You can't swing a dead cat these days without hitting something called 'nano.'"

I'm wondering which charlatan scientists he's spoken to. The ones I've spoken to and read about are planning to do some real nanoscience at the new lab, including Steven Louie, a winner of the 2003 Foresight Institute Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology. Is it possible that Louie's fooled a bunch of really smart people into believing that his cutting-edge work with nanotubes is just the same old existing science hyped as nanoscience? I'll need to go through my interview with him very carefully to find evidence of hucksterism, since the Berkeley City Council's "resident science" (who should know better) apparently has the inside dirt.

But back to that unfortunate feline. It obviously was not the lab that killed the cat, since it was already dead before it was swung into "nano." I suppose that leaves "curiosity" as the only other possible suspect.

More posts on molecular foundry protests can be found here, here, and toward the bottom here.

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