Nice idea... ...until someone decides that the resultant company is "too big to fail" and is therefore entitled to tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer money to keep them afloat after their executives demonstrate extreme incompetence while simultaneously collecting multi-million dollar compensation packages complete with golden parachutes.

No such thing as a free market.

There's a good reason for this.

The funding agencies from which scientists seek money fund "research," in the broad sense, not "development." What you're hinting at is the fundamental difference between the two.

Agencies like NSF tend to assume that if one of the projects they fund has practical applications, then "partners" (i.e., the private sector) will handle the development. Indeed, this is how Goodenough's original battery design came to market. Sony licensed the patent from Oxford University in the 1980s and started mass-producing lithium-ion batteries, paying Oxford a royalty on every battery manufactured.

The problem with eugenics is that it's completely scientifically invalid. And what starts with the (false) notion that you can measure someone's intelligence by measuring the circumference of their head ends with abominations like the Buck vs. Bell decision upholding the legality of forced sterilization as a cure for "hereditary feeblemindedness." In this decision, Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes actually stated "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." (http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/topics_fs.pl?theme=3)

That quote should, in and of itself, answer the question of what's wrong with eugenics.

This was an ill-conceived attack on the hackers' part.

If any patient dies in connection with this attack, then it puts murder charges on the table. And the thing about murder is that there's no statute of limitations. Thus, these guys will be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives.

All for MAYBE $3.6 million in Bitcoin.

Ahem...

"China Executes 2 People Over Tainted Milk Scandal"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

And whose son do you think recorded the message from the children of Earth included on the record?

http://www.worldmusic.net/news...

It's not just Fox. It's a problem with journalists in general.

Journalists are taught to present "both sides" of a story. This approach, however, leads to journalists giving charlatans "equal time." Thus, the public wrongly assumes that scientists must be split 50/50 on important issues like climate change. The reality, of course, is that the split is far closer to 99/1 than to 50/50.

The REAL underlying problem is that journalists don't know enough science to be able to spot a crackpot when they see/hear one.

"Person of Interest is one of the few recent shows I can think of that killed off a truly major character, and didn't do it at the end of a season."

I can only assume you've never watched "Sons of Anarchy," or, for that matter, "The Shield."