Tuesday, May 13, 2003

Why Is Jonathan Simms Still Alive?. As a result of mad-cow disease, this 18-year-old lost the ability to move or speak, and his doctors said he would soon lose his life. But his father had other ideas. By Lisa Belkin. [New York Times: Science] Quite a powerful story about a father's love and persistence. But the thing that continues to baffle me most about the "mad cow" story is that someone actually thought it would make sense to feed ground up herbivores to herbivores. 11:04:52 PM    comment []  trackback []

Supreme Court gets the drift? Remains to be seen [Edmonton Journal]: GM crop case heads to top court: Farmer appealed order of $173K to Monsanto The Supreme Court of Canada says it will review the case of Percy Schmeiser, a Saskatchewan farmer who is challenging one of the world's largest biotechnology companies in a dispute over the booming business of genetically modified crops.... Zakreski [the farmer's attorney] said he'll try to convince the Supreme Court to take a narrow view of the scope of patents for life forms, in keeping with the recent decision in which it refused to grant Harvard University a patent for a genetically engineered mouse. Issues of property rights (is it theft to harvest crops whose genetics may have drifted on to your field?) as well as patent rights. [See Patent Drift And Property Rights] 10:36:10 PM    comment []  trackback []