Err, you're making my point for me? Thanks?

I assume you didn't understand my comment. You also forgot to log in.

You seem to have missed my point. Growing penicillin is not difficult, and synthesising amoxicillin is also not that difficult. The research and money necessary to synthesise and test modern antibiotics is orders of magnitude bigger than the drugs of old for all manner of reasons.

Brilacidin *might* be profitable - it's not approved yet and it could still fail to make it to market. The vast majority of drugs never make it to market yet they costs millions in development anyway. It's an extremely expensive and difficult business with a high failure rate.

Where did I say that I thought his funding was from Koch?

I said that he did not disclose his funding source and that makes it suspect.

Given the level of your argument though, it seems you're not interested in discussing it. You also forgot to log in. If you forgot your password then you can reset it by email.

So he works for free?

Must be nice.

No, where did I say that I did?

Scientists are routinely investigated. Not just climate scientists but all scientists of all disciplines - it's part of the process. Accounting for the money used to fund your research is a major part of modern science and it is carefully tracked and audited, as are the sources used by groups and individuals.

It is your responsibility to disclose them in your published work, but that doesn't mean that people aren't also going to check if you don't - that's exactly why this story exists and why it is important. He didn't do so and an investigation caught it. This sort of financial scrutiny of scientists is not uncommon, and it happens to *all* scientists, even ones who don't work on climate science.

Well obviously, that's what the story is about after all, but in general these things don't happen - there's plenty of scrutiny of scientists from all sides as it is, especially in hot-button political topics like atmospheric science.

Who said anything about shutting it down?

All they want is for him to disclose who is funding him, as is standard practice in science.

Right, but the rule for publishing is that you disclose who paid for your research. If you don't do that then people aren't going to take the research seriously. Your funding source is most certainly not irrelevant at all. It doesn't mean that you automatically dismiss any work that us funded by an organisation you don't like, or who you assume has an agenda - you look at the research itself - but if you don't disclose then you're nowhere.

Your source is suspect there, I'm afraid.

If his papers are fine then why did he not disclose his funding source? That's rule one about publishing your work. To not do so is very sketchy.

No, the fact that he has been caught not disclosing his funding sources and been caught breaking ethical guidelines is what makes him corrupt.

Just a thought.

Disclosing your funding source is standard practice. Not doing so is very sketchy.

You can find that out by looking at their published work - it's standard practice to disclose your funding sources when publishing or presenting.

It depends - reputable scientists disclose all of their funding sources when publishing so you usually don't have to investigate it. Given the pretty major snafu with Willie getting caught and his clear position in opposition to a large published majority, it's not unreasonable to check into actual funding sources, not just those he and others like him have reported.

It's not uncommon to be funded by large industrial groups, even in areas that you would typically not expect - for example, BP funds a lot of non-fossil-fuel energy research at academic institutions which is totally fine, but if you receive money from them then you have to disclose it, regardless of what your results are.

Older antibiotics were cheaper to research and make. It's that simple.

Modern antibiotics are exceedingly difficult synthetic targets (if not entirely impossible, relying on semi-synthetic methods), and developing a new one is not trivial. It is expensive, time consuming and filled with hundreds of dead ends - some of which are not apparent as dead ends until significant money and time has been invested.

Compare a compound like amoxicillin (which has been around since the 70s) with some of the current contenders as new antibiotics like brilacidin or eravacycline to name just a couple. Most of the low hanging fruit in this area has been picked.

You're confusing a design patent with a hardware patent. An easy mistake to make.

Apple's "rounded corners" design patent is like Ford suing someone for making a car that looks like a Mustang - something that is also protected by a design patent.

What patent trolls do is sue because someone is making a car because they hold a broad patent on "a transportation system used by individuals or groups".

Design patents are very common and protect things like trade dress and distinguishing sets of features (for example, a Ford Mustang is a car, and cars are not a new invention, but the design patent that protects the Mustang is valid). The more traditional invention patent, however, protects that specific invention. For example, the patent that protects a specific unique widget prevents another company for making and selling that widget, but the design patent on the Ford Mustang doesn't prevent other companies from making different cars, just not ones that look like the Mustang).

Also, of note, that the summary doesn't mention that this company is also suing Samsung and Google over the same patents. It seems the "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" method has claimed victory in round 1.

Not necessarily sewn up - the fact that contactless terminals are everywhere in, for example, the UK means that when Apple Pay launches here (or any other similar NFC-based phone payment system) people will be able to start using it right away in most of their favourite shopping places.

I use contactless payment pretty much everywhere I shop where my transactions are routinely under £20 (the current contactless limit, rising to £30 soon) - pubs, grocery store, high street shops, gas stations, coffee shops, fast food etc.

All Apple or any other vendor (Google etc) has to do is turn it on for the UK and people will use it.