Background:
The Patriot Act's amendment to the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) changed the FISA (enacted in 1978) from authorizing the use of electronic surveillance where the PRIMARY purpose was for gathering foreign intelligence to authorizing the same for merely SUBSTANTIAL purposes. This effectively gave the federal government the authority to conduct domestic criminal investigations under the watch of the FISC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - staffed by 10 district judges). The application for surveillance under the FISA must be certified as "substantially for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence" by a executive official (such as the director of the FBI). The FISC can only overrule this authority if the certification is "clearly erroneous." This standard of review is extremely high. Rarely are the decisions of people in-the-know "clearly erroneous," and therefore, rarely could the court make this determination, overruling the authority to engage in surveillance.
Facts of the Case:
This case involved some of the FBI's surveillance activities related to the Madrid train bombings (March 11, 2004 - bombs exploded in Madrid killing 191 and injuring 1600). Here, a fingerprint was found on a plastic bag holding one of the explosives. The FBI ran this fingerprint through their database and didn't get a perfect match. They then queried the system for the 20 best matches. The fourth best match discovered was Mayfield, an Oregon resident, a lawyer, and a Muslim. The fact that he was a Muslim notably influenced the FBI's interest. Despite the fact that the Spanish authorities examined the fingerprint and the supposed match and subsequently determined that there in fact was no match, the FBI's interest continued. The FBI, through the FISA court's approval, electronically spied on Mayfield and his family, entered into his house when he was away, and followed him, his wife, and his children. Eventually a search warrant was issued and many of the family's possessions were seized (computers, kids' homework, etc). Mayfield was arrested and held from May 6, 2004 through May 20, 2004. He was released because the Spanish authorities found the man who matched the fingerprint (Algerian, Ouhane Daoud). Mayfield contested the constitutionality of the Patriot Act's amendment to the FISA, claiming that, on its face, it violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition on illegal searches and seizures.
Summary (ignoring issues of standing, ripeness, etc):
The Fourth Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized." U.S. Const. Amend. IV. For a surveillance warrant to issue, law enforcement officials typically need to prove probable cause. This would generally require the demonstration of some set of facts that would implicate an individual in a crime. Under the original FISA, electronic surveillance could have been conducted upon demonstrating that the PRIMARY purpose of the surveillance was to gather foreign intelligence. The Patriot Act amendment virtually removes any safeguard that surveillance would be conducted for the primary purpose of domestic law enforcement. The District Court concluded that because there is no check to prevent the domestic surveillance of a US citizen, this amendment to FISA is unconstitutional on its face.
The primary problem was the certification and standard of review. Executive officials are, in effect, members of law enforcement for the purpose of certifying FISA applications. Their primary goal is to engage in these activities to support their investigations. To require their findings to only be overruled if they are "clearly erroneous" gives them too much leverage. Furthermore, the government doesn't have to stipulate that foreign intelligence gathering is their primary purpose. The governm
First off, IANAL, and this is not legal advice. Because there is collusion that affects trade in some way (use of legal services, etc), this question falls under 1 of the Sherman Act. In a horizontal restraint of trade case, the question really boils down to whether this is illegal simply because they are doing it (illegal per se), or if this is illegal because of its economic consequences such as higher prices or reduced output (rule of reason). Things like group boycotts (usually), agreements to fix prices, and agreements to reduce output are illegal per se. The traditional standard for companies agreeing to do something, however, is the rule of reason. This requires an extensive economic analysis of the competitive landscape. Can you argue that what the RIAA is doing is in some way increasing prices or reducing output? Is there a significant affect on competition? I think the best argument here is that this has the potential effect of increasing prices because of the lack of competition with defending copyrights (the member parties don't individually defend copyrights, but agreed to do so together). They don't have a choice to not defend (a valid choice). This eliminates the competition from a lower total cost player (you can compete for customers based on your policies regarding defending or not defending copyrights). Let's see if this is how it is argued. I don't think that this will be illegal per se. Likely, the antitrust claim will be dismissed . . . the effect of this kind of competition is hard to prove.
Even at our current level of understanding we realize that the "garbage" of which you speak is largely functional. Just because it doesn't code for a protein doesn't mean that it has no use. Molecules that up-regulate and down-regulate transcription bind to many introns and exons, affecting genetic expression. To replace said DNA, or to move its location closer to or away from a specific gene by throwing in some other foreign DNA will potentially affect expression and will have unknown consequences. Some diseases are caused by having too much or too little of a particular protein being expressed (certain types of cancers come to mind). People are also looking at affecting genetic expression to attempt to prevent the onset of disease.
Basically, a retrovirus can have a deleterious effect, a beneficial effect, or no effect. I would argue that it's most likely to be deleterious (if found in nature) because retroviruses tend to hijack our own cell's "production facilities", taking resources away from our own maintenance.
I don't know how you can successfully argue that "listing" someone only civily convicted is not a form of punishment. AFAIK, the only way that it has been applied successfully in _criminal_ cases of sexual offense is as a part of the punishment. This seems to me a way of circumventing the criminal process to dole out punishments to the accused. 14th ammendment challenge, here we come . . . it's just sad that someone would have to first be harmed by this misguided statute prior to its challenge.
From an evolutionary standpoint, the effects of these protiens don't effectively prevent carriers/expressers of the aP2 gene from passing on their genetic material to the next generation. Natural selection isn't perfect, and we are not without flaws. These flaws are simply kept in check by our need to propagate our genes.
Ahh yes. I remember the good old days of hacked cable boxes. Everyone gathered at a friends house to watch the fight on free pay-per-view (free-per view?). If this technology gets launched, I wonder how long it will be before we see an outcry against hacked boxes . . .
Vancomycin is, sadly, a first line agent for MRSA. It is becoming less and less effective as resistance is mounting. Drugs like linezolid (zyvox), and this new potential agent are quite necessary to treat this emerging threat. Unfortunately, there is little money to be made in developing new antibiotic agents. Most antibiotics recently developed have lost money for the companies developing them. Then, when companies in accordance with FDA and medical society recommendations limit hospital pathway use, they get harshly criticized for charging an accordingly high price. Do we need an outright epidemic to get people to realize the threat of emerging infectious diseases?
Believe it or not, there are quite a few NGO's, not-for-profit, and for-profit drug and biotechnology companies whose sole purpose is in developing treatments for diseases affecting resource poor countries. It is rather infuriating to see the kind of bourgeois backlash against this technology when it has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.
Yikes. First off, the $16 billion is more like $61 billion. Second, big pharma is not hiding the benificial effects of red wine. I don't know how many news stories I've read about the benifits of red wine. Pfizer makes a killing off of selling lipitor because people don't eat healthy diets and excercize regularly. I was in a coversation with a doctor who called Lipitor a "lifestyle medication." This term usually refers to drugs like viagra (non-life saving). He described Lipitor as the drug you take after eating a McMeal and downing a 2 Liter of regular Coke.
Pfizer doesn't need to hide information from people who generally don't care to use it.
Capsaicin increases stomach acid production. Excessive acid production can cause stomach and esophageal cancer. With the amount the mice in this study were taking, it would be almost impossible to administer capsaicin treatment without bypassing the stomach and co-administering a PPI.
More and more evidence is mounting to the effect that cancer is sometimes caused by inflamatory processes. Substance P is necessary for some cancer cells to progress through cell cycling. When molecules like COX are overexpressed, as is the case in some inflamatory processes, Substance P is also ramped up. Taking Substance P out of the equation can do a few things. With pain caused by trauma, the transmission of the painful sensation is decreased. With aberrant cell propogation, apoptosis can be induced.
Some studies are showing that drugs like aspirin and capsaicin may be more effective at dealing with cancer than existing targeted (side effect ridden) cancer drugs.
And ALWAYS remember to thouroughly wash your hands after slicing peppers when you're making chilli. If you so happen to forget and decide to relieve your bladder, your penile positioning device (read: hands) might very well be the death of you.
Sadly, this is exactly what the RIAA wants us to do . . . buy it again. There is (obviously) a market for digital (mp3, mp4, etc) music copies. By ripping CDs, even for our own personal use and enjoyment, we are affecting the market for digital music. Granted, charging people for the digital copy as well as the physical copy seems highly dubious, ripping, or digitally backing up our music might not be a fair use. Take a look at this Stanford site http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use _Overview/chapter9/9-a.html describing the nature of fair use. As a person who regularly rips CDs for personal enjoyment on my ipod, I sure something . . . a court decision, legislation . . . ensures we don't have to pay twice. What a sad world that would be . . .
This is likely the most promising potential method of creating a renewable fuel source. There has been some work done on this above and beyond what the article discusses. By using thermophillic bacteria (or their genes coding specific enzymes, at least), we have been able to create bacteria that can produce H2 at considerable rates using nothing more than cellulose and water. To date, no one has been able to make this an effecient process, however. The search is still on for H2 production rate increases (and the technological infrastructure to utilize this as a fuel source when it does become viable).
Yes, it has been done before. This band is doing nothing new. The fact that this is getting publicity is what interests me. The cheaper it becomes to record and master an album with professional studio quality, the more artists will be putting out these albums on their own. Artists make next to nothing from the sales of their albums. The money generated here typically goes straight to the producing agency. Where artists make their money is from concert ticket sales (and if you're really famous, TV spots, etc.). The more artists that are recording their own work, generating their own publicity, and freely distributing their art, the less anyone will need the RIAA members.
A band like Green Day, for example, could certainly pay for their album production, use a promotion agency for distribution at a small fraction of what it would cost them to go through the normal channels, and still make just as much, if not more, money than if they had a formal label produce them. Pretty soon, someone is going to wise up and seriously use this business model. If I was at all interested, I'd find a really good band (it's not hard to do . . . check out the local music scene in any major city for a week and you'll come across one or two), shell out about 75K for album production and initial promotions, give away the album for free, promote that fact on slashdot (I think that's what the ?????? is), and finally . . . profit. If we can get significant airplay on regional radio, and the music is good, the national scene will pick it up with the right sales approach. No where is there any need in this model for a huge production company, nor is there much of a need for tangible media. The band would not be as big as Green Day, but that's more a function of the popularity of downloadable music versus that of CDs. More power to anyone who wants to give this a shot.
Whereas you're correct in so much as a free market with limited monopoly power will see prices approach marginal costs, the marginal cost for producing most anything is never zero. Since you're speaking in economic terms, we need to take into consideration factors such as oppertunitiy costs, the costs of maintaining and distributing the product, etc. OOo may be giving away free (as in beer) software, but it didn't cost the developers nothing to do so. We need to keep this in mind when talking about the viability of open source enterprises.
As to my understanding, it is not possible to "release things" into the public domain. If an author publishes a statement that a given work is being made "public" or something to that effect, and you use that work, or distribute it, or copy it, or whatever, you might still be infringing. If the origional author decides to take you to court over it, we don't know what the outcome of the case would be. I don't think that there is a legal way to say "this work can be used/copied/distributed by anyone, anywhere". This, I believe, is why the "Creative Commons" was formed. I don't know how defensable this agreement is, and IANAL, but I think this is the best we have so far.
Hmm . . . what about those inventions that take longer than 5 years to bring from patent to market? Should we just tell those people, "Tough luck."? I hope you don't care much for healthcare advancements.
The USPTO does not have the ability to determine the official "patentability" of any non-simple invention (and even simple ones). Patent officers are overworked and undertrained. The theory is that the validity of patents will be hashed out in the courts. Wasted resources? Of course. Stifled innovation? Obviously. How many letters have any of you written to your representatives recently?
Well, sir . . . back in my day we didn't have that new fangled mp3 or even mp2. We had mp1 and we liked it. We called it mpeg. Downloading songs from the Internet Underground Music Archive . . . those were the days.
This would be a fantastic idea if it weren't for the fact that the publicity stirs up much needed funding for the research that would lead to human clinical trials. Also, keep in mind that only about 1 in 10 molecular agents that make it to clinical trials actually make it to market. But hey . . . I guess we shouldn't talk about any of the possibilities until then, right?
I had Adelphia once. I have Comcast currently, and have had experiences with it in the past. I can honestly say that, if given the opportunity, I would conjure up dark forces, sell whatever remains of my soul at this point (as I've made some transactions in the past for things like Pearl Jam tickets), and bargain for Adelphia back. The quality difference between the two companies is hardly minimal. With Adelphia, I felt like more than just my 90 dollar a month payment. With Comcast, I pay more, get less, and feel as if I'm getting bent over and shafted in the process. For those are currently living in an area serviced by Adelphia, please let this merger fail.
These comments are somewhat misleading. The bacteria loose this resistance because they have incorporated only plasmids into their cytoplasm. Plasmids are easily obtained and lost by bacteria.
They are not part of the actual bacterial genome.
In plants, artificially expressed genes that are passed on from generation to generation are typically obtained through a retroviral vector. The gene is physically fused into the plants original genome. This is much more difficult to loose (especially when you're talking about a multi-cellular organism).
Slashdot Mirror
Background: The Patriot Act's amendment to the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) changed the FISA (enacted in 1978) from authorizing the use of electronic surveillance where the PRIMARY purpose was for gathering foreign intelligence to authorizing the same for merely SUBSTANTIAL purposes. This effectively gave the federal government the authority to conduct domestic criminal investigations under the watch of the FISC (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - staffed by 10 district judges). The application for surveillance under the FISA must be certified as "substantially for the purpose of gathering foreign intelligence" by a executive official (such as the director of the FBI). The FISC can only overrule this authority if the certification is "clearly erroneous." This standard of review is extremely high. Rarely are the decisions of people in-the-know "clearly erroneous," and therefore, rarely could the court make this determination, overruling the authority to engage in surveillance. Facts of the Case: This case involved some of the FBI's surveillance activities related to the Madrid train bombings (March 11, 2004 - bombs exploded in Madrid killing 191 and injuring 1600). Here, a fingerprint was found on a plastic bag holding one of the explosives. The FBI ran this fingerprint through their database and didn't get a perfect match. They then queried the system for the 20 best matches. The fourth best match discovered was Mayfield, an Oregon resident, a lawyer, and a Muslim. The fact that he was a Muslim notably influenced the FBI's interest. Despite the fact that the Spanish authorities examined the fingerprint and the supposed match and subsequently determined that there in fact was no match, the FBI's interest continued. The FBI, through the FISA court's approval, electronically spied on Mayfield and his family, entered into his house when he was away, and followed him, his wife, and his children. Eventually a search warrant was issued and many of the family's possessions were seized (computers, kids' homework, etc). Mayfield was arrested and held from May 6, 2004 through May 20, 2004. He was released because the Spanish authorities found the man who matched the fingerprint (Algerian, Ouhane Daoud). Mayfield contested the constitutionality of the Patriot Act's amendment to the FISA, claiming that, on its face, it violates the Fourth Amendment prohibition on illegal searches and seizures. Summary (ignoring issues of standing, ripeness, etc): The Fourth Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause . . . particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized." U.S. Const. Amend. IV. For a surveillance warrant to issue, law enforcement officials typically need to prove probable cause. This would generally require the demonstration of some set of facts that would implicate an individual in a crime. Under the original FISA, electronic surveillance could have been conducted upon demonstrating that the PRIMARY purpose of the surveillance was to gather foreign intelligence. The Patriot Act amendment virtually removes any safeguard that surveillance would be conducted for the primary purpose of domestic law enforcement. The District Court concluded that because there is no check to prevent the domestic surveillance of a US citizen, this amendment to FISA is unconstitutional on its face. The primary problem was the certification and standard of review. Executive officials are, in effect, members of law enforcement for the purpose of certifying FISA applications. Their primary goal is to engage in these activities to support their investigations. To require their findings to only be overruled if they are "clearly erroneous" gives them too much leverage. Furthermore, the government doesn't have to stipulate that foreign intelligence gathering is their primary purpose. The governm
First off, IANAL, and this is not legal advice. Because there is collusion that affects trade in some way (use of legal services, etc), this question falls under 1 of the Sherman Act. In a horizontal restraint of trade case, the question really boils down to whether this is illegal simply because they are doing it (illegal per se), or if this is illegal because of its economic consequences such as higher prices or reduced output (rule of reason). Things like group boycotts (usually), agreements to fix prices, and agreements to reduce output are illegal per se. The traditional standard for companies agreeing to do something, however, is the rule of reason. This requires an extensive economic analysis of the competitive landscape. Can you argue that what the RIAA is doing is in some way increasing prices or reducing output? Is there a significant affect on competition? I think the best argument here is that this has the potential effect of increasing prices because of the lack of competition with defending copyrights (the member parties don't individually defend copyrights, but agreed to do so together). They don't have a choice to not defend (a valid choice). This eliminates the competition from a lower total cost player (you can compete for customers based on your policies regarding defending or not defending copyrights). Let's see if this is how it is argued. I don't think that this will be illegal per se. Likely, the antitrust claim will be dismissed . . . the effect of this kind of competition is hard to prove.
Even at our current level of understanding we realize that the "garbage" of which you speak is largely functional. Just because it doesn't code for a protein doesn't mean that it has no use. Molecules that up-regulate and down-regulate transcription bind to many introns and exons, affecting genetic expression. To replace said DNA, or to move its location closer to or away from a specific gene by throwing in some other foreign DNA will potentially affect expression and will have unknown consequences. Some diseases are caused by having too much or too little of a particular protein being expressed (certain types of cancers come to mind). People are also looking at affecting genetic expression to attempt to prevent the onset of disease. Basically, a retrovirus can have a deleterious effect, a beneficial effect, or no effect. I would argue that it's most likely to be deleterious (if found in nature) because retroviruses tend to hijack our own cell's "production facilities", taking resources away from our own maintenance.
I don't know how you can successfully argue that "listing" someone only civily convicted is not a form of punishment. AFAIK, the only way that it has been applied successfully in _criminal_ cases of sexual offense is as a part of the punishment. This seems to me a way of circumventing the criminal process to dole out punishments to the accused. 14th ammendment challenge, here we come . . . it's just sad that someone would have to first be harmed by this misguided statute prior to its challenge.
From an evolutionary standpoint, the effects of these protiens don't effectively prevent carriers/expressers of the aP2 gene from passing on their genetic material to the next generation. Natural selection isn't perfect, and we are not without flaws. These flaws are simply kept in check by our need to propagate our genes.
We wouldn't have been able to make sense of all the A's, G's, C's, and T's without you. And 3D protein imaging? Forget about it . . .
Ahh yes. I remember the good old days of hacked cable boxes. Everyone gathered at a friends house to watch the fight on free pay-per-view (free-per view?). If this technology gets launched, I wonder how long it will be before we see an outcry against hacked boxes . . .
Vancomycin is, sadly, a first line agent for MRSA. It is becoming less and less effective as resistance is mounting. Drugs like linezolid (zyvox), and this new potential agent are quite necessary to treat this emerging threat. Unfortunately, there is little money to be made in developing new antibiotic agents. Most antibiotics recently developed have lost money for the companies developing them. Then, when companies in accordance with FDA and medical society recommendations limit hospital pathway use, they get harshly criticized for charging an accordingly high price. Do we need an outright epidemic to get people to realize the threat of emerging infectious diseases?
Believe it or not, there are quite a few NGO's, not-for-profit, and for-profit drug and biotechnology companies whose sole purpose is in developing treatments for diseases affecting resource poor countries. It is rather infuriating to see the kind of bourgeois backlash against this technology when it has the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.
Yikes. First off, the $16 billion is more like $61 billion. Second, big pharma is not hiding the benificial effects of red wine. I don't know how many news stories I've read about the benifits of red wine. Pfizer makes a killing off of selling lipitor because people don't eat healthy diets and excercize regularly. I was in a coversation with a doctor who called Lipitor a "lifestyle medication." This term usually refers to drugs like viagra (non-life saving). He described Lipitor as the drug you take after eating a McMeal and downing a 2 Liter of regular Coke. Pfizer doesn't need to hide information from people who generally don't care to use it.
Capsaicin increases stomach acid production. Excessive acid production can cause stomach and esophageal cancer. With the amount the mice in this study were taking, it would be almost impossible to administer capsaicin treatment without bypassing the stomach and co-administering a PPI.
More and more evidence is mounting to the effect that cancer is sometimes caused by inflamatory processes. Substance P is necessary for some cancer cells to progress through cell cycling. When molecules like COX are overexpressed, as is the case in some inflamatory processes, Substance P is also ramped up. Taking Substance P out of the equation can do a few things. With pain caused by trauma, the transmission of the painful sensation is decreased. With aberrant cell propogation, apoptosis can be induced. Some studies are showing that drugs like aspirin and capsaicin may be more effective at dealing with cancer than existing targeted (side effect ridden) cancer drugs.
And ALWAYS remember to thouroughly wash your hands after slicing peppers when you're making chilli. If you so happen to forget and decide to relieve your bladder, your penile positioning device (read: hands) might very well be the death of you.
Sadly, this is exactly what the RIAA wants us to do . . . buy it again. There is (obviously) a market for digital (mp3, mp4, etc) music copies. By ripping CDs, even for our own personal use and enjoyment, we are affecting the market for digital music. Granted, charging people for the digital copy as well as the physical copy seems highly dubious, ripping, or digitally backing up our music might not be a fair use. Take a look at this Stanford site http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use _Overview/chapter9/9-a.html describing the nature of fair use. As a person who regularly rips CDs for personal enjoyment on my ipod, I sure something . . . a court decision, legislation . . . ensures we don't have to pay twice. What a sad world that would be . . .
This is likely the most promising potential method of creating a renewable fuel source. There has been some work done on this above and beyond what the article discusses. By using thermophillic bacteria (or their genes coding specific enzymes, at least), we have been able to create bacteria that can produce H2 at considerable rates using nothing more than cellulose and water. To date, no one has been able to make this an effecient process, however. The search is still on for H2 production rate increases (and the technological infrastructure to utilize this as a fuel source when it does become viable).
Yes, it has been done before. This band is doing nothing new. The fact that this is getting publicity is what interests me. The cheaper it becomes to record and master an album with professional studio quality, the more artists will be putting out these albums on their own. Artists make next to nothing from the sales of their albums. The money generated here typically goes straight to the producing agency. Where artists make their money is from concert ticket sales (and if you're really famous, TV spots, etc.). The more artists that are recording their own work, generating their own publicity, and freely distributing their art, the less anyone will need the RIAA members. A band like Green Day, for example, could certainly pay for their album production, use a promotion agency for distribution at a small fraction of what it would cost them to go through the normal channels, and still make just as much, if not more, money than if they had a formal label produce them. Pretty soon, someone is going to wise up and seriously use this business model. If I was at all interested, I'd find a really good band (it's not hard to do . . . check out the local music scene in any major city for a week and you'll come across one or two), shell out about 75K for album production and initial promotions, give away the album for free, promote that fact on slashdot (I think that's what the ?????? is), and finally . . . profit. If we can get significant airplay on regional radio, and the music is good, the national scene will pick it up with the right sales approach. No where is there any need in this model for a huge production company, nor is there much of a need for tangible media. The band would not be as big as Green Day, but that's more a function of the popularity of downloadable music versus that of CDs. More power to anyone who wants to give this a shot.
Whereas you're correct in so much as a free market with limited monopoly power will see prices approach marginal costs, the marginal cost for producing most anything is never zero. Since you're speaking in economic terms, we need to take into consideration factors such as oppertunitiy costs, the costs of maintaining and distributing the product, etc. OOo may be giving away free (as in beer) software, but it didn't cost the developers nothing to do so. We need to keep this in mind when talking about the viability of open source enterprises.
As to my understanding, it is not possible to "release things" into the public domain. If an author publishes a statement that a given work is being made "public" or something to that effect, and you use that work, or distribute it, or copy it, or whatever, you might still be infringing. If the origional author decides to take you to court over it, we don't know what the outcome of the case would be. I don't think that there is a legal way to say "this work can be used/copied/distributed by anyone, anywhere". This, I believe, is why the "Creative Commons" was formed. I don't know how defensable this agreement is, and IANAL, but I think this is the best we have so far.
Hmm . . . what about those inventions that take longer than 5 years to bring from patent to market? Should we just tell those people, "Tough luck."? I hope you don't care much for healthcare advancements.
The USPTO does not have the ability to determine the official "patentability" of any non-simple invention (and even simple ones). Patent officers are overworked and undertrained. The theory is that the validity of patents will be hashed out in the courts. Wasted resources? Of course. Stifled innovation? Obviously. How many letters have any of you written to your representatives recently?
You forgot to tell him to write it on the back of his ATM card. Now he'll just lose it again!
Well, sir . . . back in my day we didn't have that new fangled mp3 or even mp2. We had mp1 and we liked it. We called it mpeg. Downloading songs from the Internet Underground Music Archive . . . those were the days.
This would be a fantastic idea if it weren't for the fact that the publicity stirs up much needed funding for the research that would lead to human clinical trials. Also, keep in mind that only about 1 in 10 molecular agents that make it to clinical trials actually make it to market. But hey . . . I guess we shouldn't talk about any of the possibilities until then, right?
I had Adelphia once. I have Comcast currently, and have had experiences with it in the past. I can honestly say that, if given the opportunity, I would conjure up dark forces, sell whatever remains of my soul at this point (as I've made some transactions in the past for things like Pearl Jam tickets), and bargain for Adelphia back. The quality difference between the two companies is hardly minimal. With Adelphia, I felt like more than just my 90 dollar a month payment. With Comcast, I pay more, get less, and feel as if I'm getting bent over and shafted in the process. For those are currently living in an area serviced by Adelphia, please let this merger fail.
These comments are somewhat misleading. The bacteria loose this resistance because they have incorporated only plasmids into their cytoplasm. Plasmids are easily obtained and lost by bacteria. They are not part of the actual bacterial genome. In plants, artificially expressed genes that are passed on from generation to generation are typically obtained through a retroviral vector. The gene is physically fused into the plants original genome. This is much more difficult to loose (especially when you're talking about a multi-cellular organism).