It is not the FDA's bailiwick to consider the legal framework under which these fish might be marketed. They can only comment and decide based on the biology. Therefore, it IS FUD, since the only concerns raised relate to policy outside of their preview or their control.

Furthermore, despite all of the hand-wringing by /. and others not directly connected to large scale agriculture, farmers have the choice of which seed to buy every year. They consistently vote with their wallets FOR Monsanto's seeds. There are alternatives, my parent company has a seed division, and Monsanto is the clear market leader because their customers (farmers) believe that Monsanto creates more value for them at the end of the year than the competition.

As I've pointed out many times before. The farmer in this case intentionally collected seeds only from the field closest to and down wind from a neighbor that he knew for certain had planted Monsanto corn. He is not as innocent as commonly portrayed. That being said, I am in full agreement that the patent system needs revision on the point. Doesn't change the fact that the OP is FUD.

I realize that it is very stylish on /. to be cunical about both big business and the government, and to some extent i agree on both counts. However, when it comes to regulatory filings, neither side wants to be liable for anything going wrong for obvious reasons. As I said, I'm involved in several regulatory filings at the moment, and I can assure you that bribery isn't in it. If it were, then they wouldn't need me. Or my more expensive coleagues (PhD biochemists carrying law degrees are not exacly a dime a dozen) The high cost of regulatory filings is due to the close scrutiny, bureaucrats fear of blame if things go wrong, and the high cost of research used in assuaging their fears.

How, pray tell, do you prove a negative? I.e. how do you prove that "GM salmon will never cause harm". If you set the bar impossibly high, then progress will never be made.

As to the labeling, the USDA guidelines for food labeling are designed to keep people honest about the differences in what are essentially commodities. If the USDA believed that there was a significant difference between GM crops and Conventional crops, then they would approve of a labeling initiative. However, one of the requirements for regulatory approval, is demonstrating that the GM crop is substantially similar to the conventional. Therefore, there is no need for a label, unless the label also makes it clear that the implied difference is insignificant. For example, Milk in the US frequently has a label indicating that no rBST was used in its production, but at the bottom of the label is a footnote indicating that their is no difference between milk produced with or without rBST. It is about battling FUD.

I'm currently involved in some FDA filings, and the hurdles for getting a new use approved for something already on the market and GRAS are prodigious, I can only imagine the hurdles that they've forced these GM salmon to jump through to show that the salmon do not appear likely to pose a threat.

FUD

I'm fairly certain their are FUD and Ethics issues with stem cells since most of what I've read indicates a preference for embryonic stem cells. This neatly dodges some FUD and Ethics issues, in favor of some that are potentially less difficult to get around.

Can't do much in science these days without confronting FUD and ethics issues, and the risk of viral contagion are pretty low, since this kind of viral manipulation has been going on in labs for a while now without incident.

The First problem with predictions about "Peak Oil", or peak anything for that matter, is that it assumes the current known reservers are all that exist. The Second problem with these predictions are that they don't take into account the ability of price and new technology to change what known quantities of a natural resource even get counted in the reserves.

The known reserves of Oil is higher today than it was during the oil shortages of the 1970's here in the US. This is becuase exploration continues to find new reserves. Furthermore, the Candian oil sands were known about in the 1970's, but excluded from the estimates of global reserves becuase, at 1970's prices and using 1970's technology, it was not possible to extract the oil and sell it for a profit. Both prices and technology changed, and now the Canadian oil sands are included in global reserves calculations. Also, wells are not pumped dry. They are frequently shut off when the costs associated with extraction are greater thant he price the oil can be sold for. As prices go down, producing fields are capped until prices go back up and the field can be operated without a loss. Steam injection and other techniques have made it possible to get more oil out of a well at a lower cost than was possible 40 years ago, and I see no reason to believe that this advance of technology is going to reach it's apex with current technology. The financial incentives to come up with new technologies are just too great.

This is all very clearly discussed in "Basic Economics, 4th edition" by Thomas Sowell. I'm currently listening to the Audiobook during my weekday commute and it is very understandable and quite convincing.

Now, this doesn't address the AGW issues associated with use of fossile fuels directly. However, by using up the cheap easily-accessible oil we will create an economic situation where alternatives that are currently not cost effective (with or without government intervention) will become cost effective at somepoint without increasing their cost per unit of energy. Furthermore, as each alternative technology gets closer to cost effective, investement capital will be injected into R&D to try and be the first to hit the market in a cost effective manner and reap the benefits that come from being first and getting the lions share of the market to start.

I and others have pointed this out that this patent was rejected before. If you are going to harp on a single patent in that case, then you should at least be aware of the verdict on that particular patent. It's not like there wasn't sufficient coverage of the details.

I'm not defending Apple, they are pursuing a strategy and will reap whatever comes, and deservedly so. Willful ignorance just irritates me.

Strawman much? I never stated, or implied they didn't. Only that of all the potentially weak patents they asserted, they lost this one. If that patent and the clock face patent are truly of similar quality, then the Swiss shouldn't expect anymore success than apple saw with the rounded rectangles patent.

Never said they were deserving or even in need of absolution. They tried and failed on that point. The post I was replying to was conflating the two for understandable reasons, but since apple lost that point I suspect that the Swiss will as well. If you want to nail apple for something, use one of the rediculous patents that actually held up in court.

As a matter of fact that most people missed in the Samsung verdict, you CAN use the rounded rectangle shape. That was one of the few point of victory for Samsung... But don't let me get in the way of your trolling.

because if you are an investor, then popularity is one sign of future success. Relative comparisons of popularity are one possible metric for picking one investment opportunity over another.

If the pre-orders don't count until the 21st, then it is virtually impossible for the iPhone 5, not to outsell the Galaxy SIII over the first 2 weeks. Apple is adding an additional 22 countries on the 28th, where they should see initial release volumes based on pent up demand in those countries.

The marketing aspect of these numbers is truly frustrating. Everyone released their numbers based on different metrics (sold to consumers vs shipped to carriers) and time scales (1st 24-hr, 1st 3-d, 1st 2-wk, etc.). Every platform advocate has something to brag about, as long as they get to pick the topic, but observers are left largely confused.

Do you have a source? I could find no data on 24-hr pre-sale rate for the Galaxy SIII.

I did find the wikipedia page for the Samsung Galaxy S III, which lists 9 million pre-orders from Carriers in the first 2 weeks based on an anonymous Samsung Official. They then compare this to the 4 million pre-sales of the iPhone 4S. I found no citation for the pre-sale rates for iPhone, but the wikipedia page for the iPhone 4S claims 4 million sold (to customers?) in the first 3 days of availability.

Compare that to 2 million in 24-hr for the 5, and I doubt that the iPhone 5 is "way behind the Galaxy S3" as you put it. I think the iPhone 5 is probably doing on par with, or better than the S3. The daily rate of sale will need to drop to something below ((9 million S3 - 2 million 1st day iPhone 5's)/13 days remaining in the 1st two weeks for comparison = 0.538 million/day for the next 13 days to end up below the S3. Now, I don't have any data on how effective first day pre-order sales are at predicting the ultimate sale rate of a device, but suspect that the daily rate of sale is not going to drop by a factor of 4 in such a short period of time.

But they ARE aware of it, thus their fight to move from the wholesale model that favors Amazon to the Agency model where they set their own retail prices. The problem (from Apple and the publisher's perspective) is that the regulators (and many here on the forums) are not paying attention to this ultimate end-game, and are only focusing on short term e-book prices and their potential to go down if Amazon is allowed to revert to the wholesale model.