What? I think you misunderstand GM.

What you have stated - uniform growing, lack of blemishes, etc. - are all achievable through hybridization and selective breeding and whatnot, which humans have been doing for thousands of years. For example, the tomatoes you buy at the grocery store have been modified this way over the centuries to provide fruits of better yield, hardiness, and even color.

While technically hybridization is "genetic modification," when people talk about GM foods they specifically mean artifical genetic changes - like adding pest resistance genes from other species of plants, or genes from bacteria, animals or insects.

There's no good reason (yet) to develop GM trees, because GM work is expensive and there isn't enough of a profit motive to make trees that resist beetles or diseases in this way.

... but if he's going to just throw a billion dollars away, why doesn't he do something decent with it like feed the poor or cure a disease or give computers to schools or fund music programs?

Or start a new business to help America get its shit together and beat this recession?

I paid for it this time simply because I never paid for it as a kid. My friends and I used to trade floppies and pirate constantly in our youth, so I guess it's time I paid my dues back for those hours of entertainment on my old 286/386/486.

Now, if they'd only release Commander Keen and the old Ultima games and such on the iPhone...

... I can see why she does it.

As soon as I mention my major from back when I was in college to anyone still in college there, they immediately ask, "Do you still have your lab reports from ____ class?" This has happened to me more times than I can remember, and I graduated from undergrad more than 5 years ago. No, I do not have my Mammalian Physiology or Organic Chem lab notebooks stashed away in a vault.

I understand that the lab classes are difficult, but if you're so desperate for someone to cheat off that you have to ask some random dude at the gym who started a conversation with you about how to do squats properly, there's a problem.

Cheating and copying of former students' assignments is probably rampant. Is this a real solution? No. There are way too many ways to circumvent her system, and it's morally wrong.

A better question to ask is why doesn't she change her tests or assignments or such so that past notes don't matter? It's not like Economics is a lab class with experiments that are difficult to change from year-to-year. If students are collecting old notes to help them study, what's wrong with more study materials so long as they do not allow the students to cheat?