Maybe, maybe not. First remember how much basic research is done by universities, further much the same thing has been said about open source software. Remember I am not proposing the elimination of for profit drug research companies, but rather simply opening the door for more open source type avenues also.

True story, well if you can believe my dentist, but she seems very rational person. She said her brother had started selling a wrist watch that was used to combat ADD, basically is would vibrate and give an "atta boy" message when the child got off track, it was remote controlled by the teacher FYI. It was about as intrusive as a digimon watch. So he started selling them, but eventually got a cease and desist letter from the FDA for selling an untested medical device. When he later spoke with an FDA insider, he was supposedly told drug companies got wind of the device and turned him in, along with applying a little influence, to get him shut down. I think the day may have come to limit the FDA to verifying the purity of the drug or substance you are buying, but not make decisions on it's proper use. Maybe something closer to a medical research wiki with verification of information sources (so companies couldn't falsely claim results). Maybe the FDA could monitor the checks and balances of such a system or something. Over all the system would be less like "buy my anti balding pill" and more like research has shown chemical X reverses baldness, and the following companies sell chemical X and compete on prices. Drugs would become de-facto generics in most cases.

Yes, actually it IS a problem and really should be addressed. One important reason there are so many boys in CS and STEM is because there are so few boys in other classes, after all there are factually more girls in post secondary education over all. What is wrong to me is they are only focusing on one discipline, one gender and the solutions are sounding more and more punitive to boys. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar anyway.

The Government collects taxes on illegal activity, thus the property belongs to whoever bought it. I know that doesn't "feel" right, but if we are going to tax crime, then I guess the proceeds belong to who owns it.

I think I can explain the idea. H1B visas are not green cards, companies like them because once they sponsor someone that person either keeps working for the same company or goes home. Companies like this because it makes the person wholly dependent on the sponsor company, read really low wages. Except the catch is eventually lots of these people do go home, bringing their technical skill and company IP with them. As the process continues you get net talent drain out of the U.S., the U.S. citizen was never given a chance to learn the job and those skills hours go back offshore. Back when there were very few real opportunities back home the process was slow, but as the process continues over time there are more and more options back home and each new returnee further enables the next one. That is why you are now hearing more so many stories about workers repatriating, at the end of the day most of them really would prefer to live and work in their native communities. That is why most technical organizations advocate green cards over H1B, if the person is really that good, why not give them the option of staying. Companies don't like it because once they get over here, they can't keep them unless they pay competitive wages.

For about 20 years I have felt that the solution to spiraling costs in medicine is to enable collaborative or "open source" type research. There is no doubt that the free market, where true competition takes place, can compete to produce medicine very cheaply if allowed to, but the basic research needed does take real effort and the resulting patents, though needed under the current system, end up being very expensive for the end user. The natural remedy crowd has long rightly claimed that there are many natural remedies available that can never get the funding needed to pass FDA approval because there is no profit in doing so. Likewise the information revolution has made even development of high tech remedies within the reach average individuals and communities. I call on us all to consider how the approval process could be adapted to keep safeguards in place, yet enable collaborative open source medicine to be researched and produced. If people are motivated to help out Wikipedia out of simple community altruism, consider how motivated people would be to help cure diseased afflicting loved ones! I think there is also a valuable place for government and university funded labs to perform much of the basic research needed.

Don't censor yourself more or *LESS* because of what happened. If you do either, you are letting these events change your belief in what is right. If you never had a belief in what was right to begin with, well I can't help you there.

Sure, when they print 3D guns on the state capitol lawn they are heroes, but when I tried to set up my meth lab on the state lawn I was hauled off like a common criminal. Still I won't be impressed until someone makes a 3D printed robot made out of guns that shoots guns.

Now for the punch line, Isaac Newton was very devote and believed there was all kinds of deeper meaning, including scientific, in the Bible. He ought be as much a hero of Christianity as Science. People need to take a chill pill.

I can prove what I said. Note I didn't say NK has NO computer hacking resources, but rather that they have far fewer than other countries. Consider how few people even have internet access in NK, or even a computer. The ones who do may be perfectly competent, but I would simply assert that if NK was able to pull this off, any number of other countries or organizations (hacktavists and rival corporations included) could clearly have easily pulled this off also. Us not knowing for sure if it was an inside job or not to me means we need to know a lot more about the hack before pointing the finger. What do we really know, that there was some Korean words in the code and some code fragments looked reused from another attack we think came from NK. But, the Korean language thing gets me, do government employed hackers really not sanitize their code? I will grant NK had a motive of a kind, maybe in NK they don’t know about that Streisand Effect, but it isn’t like Sony has no other enemies. I think we are jumping to conclusions.

So I hear it was an inside job, how did NK get a spy infiltrated into Sony so quickly? Does NK really have that many spy assets all over the U.S. that they can whistle up as needed? Or was this an elaborate operation set up when the movie was first announced and they managed to infiltrate a NK citizen into Sony pictures in the time it took the make the movie? How does this all actually go down? FYI, NK is pretty computer illiterate over all compared to most countries and nearly every country on the planet is better positioned than NK to pull this stunt off along with a whole bunch of independent yahoos. Unless there is U.S. born traitor working for NK, seems that the possible suspects could be narrowed down pretty quickly. I am NOT saying NK was framed, but I AM saying there are a lot a people out there to do stuff for reasons I wouldn't and more real data is needed.

That is what is meant by more efficient, if it took more effort to do something it wouldn't be a technological advancement What happens is that now you find you can do more and new things that were impossible or at least unfeasible before. Technology IS very disruptive, lots of people get displaced and of necessity the values of jobs change drastically. Basically jobs that can be done by robots should, it is a losing proposition to try and work cheaper than a robot, while jobs that still require a human need to be recognized as comparably more expensive. The key to our future is understanding that this disruption is a real effect and that it helps people both individually and as a whole to aid this transition and to ensure that people have the money to buy the new products being produced, after all if one has the money to buy chairs neither people OR robots will be making chairs. Unions probably have the most important role in this change, though Government and Business need to participate also.

Actually one reason I bring this up is I have wondered if one way to prevent many diseases is to ensure the ecological niche they want to take is already occupied by a much more benign organism. So it would simply be harder for the pest to gain a foothold in the first place. Probably not totally particle with viruses, they are inherently predatory on cells, but maybe bacteria...

Well, kind off, I admit to overstating my case. None the less even carnivores, which of course eat their prey, can still have a symbiotic relationship with another species. In addition, recent research seems to indicate HIV and Ebola are recent mutations and basically maladapted viruses. Well adapted organisms tend to a beneficial equilibrium.

Strange but true, at the end of the day all parasites are better off when they become symbiotic. There is no advantage to killing off your free meal, in fact your are better off lending a hand.