Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Seeks Do-Let-The-Bed-Bugs-Bite Patent
theodp writes "In its just-published patent application for Adapting Parasites to Combat Disease, Microsoft lays out plans to unleash 'altered parasitic organisms' on humans, including mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, bed bugs, leeches, pinworms, tapeworms, hookworms, heart worms, roundworms, lice (head, body, and pubic), and the like. 'Irradiated mosquitoes can be used to deliver damaged Plasmodium to individuals,' explains Microsoft. 'Instead of contracting malaria, an individual receiving the damaged Plasmodium develops an immune response that renders the individual resistant to contracting malaria.' Don't worry about runaway breeding, advises Microsoft — 'a termination feature [that] can include programmed death' makes this impossible. As David Spade might say, I liked this movie the first time I saw it — when it was called Jurassic Park."
Organizations like SBRI are doing really interesting work on genetically attenuated malaria vaccines, and the research isn't as scary as TFS makes it out to be (e.g. comparing it to Jurassic Park). (Here's a detailed slideshow if you want to know the specifics.) The "runaway breeding" the article alludes to is ridiculous — we already have "runaway breeding" of anopheles mosquitoes, and as a result malaria kills a million or more persons per year, mostly in poor countries. The main issue with malaria vaccines is not "runaway breeding," but that eventually mutations may render the vaccine ineffective.
My main question here is: why is Microsoft filing for these patents? They have been involved in biomedics, afaik, only on the software and infomatics side. Bill Gates, through his foundation, is generously giving grants to many organizations doing promising research. I didn't realize that Microsoft was directly involved in the research side of things. Did they buy assignment rights to this research (and potential patent)? Develop it themselves? That, I think, is the bigger story for me — not that this patent has been filed for, but that it's MSFT that is the assignee.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
'a termination feature [that] can include programmed death'
I'm confident Microsoft can get that part right, it's their core competency.
So, you call down to the manager to complain about the bedbugs. The manager says, "They're not bugs, they're features".
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
In this case, the bugs are the feature.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.