While you're more than welcome to have a hand at that particular crap shoot, I think I'd rather not risk the myriad assortment of genetic handicaps humans can potentially pass to their offspring. We have no problem breeding pigs, horses, cows, dogs, etc., to be super-fit specimen of their species, so why would we hesitate to do the same to improve the genetic quality of our own species?

Uh, have you not been following the election in Iran or Dr. Tiller's murder or the D.C. Holocaust Memorial shooting? Religion is more than happy to use guns, too.

Anyone who's followed the MMO market for the past few years knows about Blizzard's "released when it's ready" policy, which guarantees the end product will be both fully featured and polished to a dazzling sheen. It's the reason Vivendi lets Blizzard do whatever they want with only minimal corporate guidance. The developers in Blizzard are the ones to set their schedule and if that means monstrously long development cycles, so be it. The end result is hundred million dollar franchises.

I've been looking forward to Jumpgate Evolution since I first learned about it. Having long been both an EVE and WoW player, my expectations are probably a bit on the high side. I've beta'd about two-thirds of all the MMOs that have come out and always observed a serious lack of polish crippling games with otherwise a lot of unrealized potential.

If ND is actually taking the time to polish the game and get it right like they claim they are, it's a smart move on their part. If they can assure a successful launch, they'll succeed where the vast majority of new entries to the MMO market have failed.

They're patenting the sequence of amino acids. They say this is patentable because it excludes the introns and is after the post-transcription modifications. Patent law excludes naturally occurring phenomenon. The sequence is a naturally occurring phenomenon after the excision of the introns (don't ask about the language, we know it's goofy) and post-transcription modifications. It all occurs in nature and is thus unpatentable. However, the USPTO has decided that whatever happens after translation is patentable, which makes no sense from either a legal or scientific standpoint (which I happen to have experience in both).

I was finishing my undergrad degree in Genetics and working for a patent agent writing claims and detailed descriptions for biotech patents when I discovered this loophole in patent law. I was livid as I knew first hand how toxic IP law is to scientific fields and had assumed, based on the explicit language of the law, that my chosen field would be only minimally affected.

Basically, the prosecution is going to have to call on some good expert witnesses to explain every stage of how DNA is translated and transcribed into proteins. They'll need to put it in language a judge/jury can understand while also constantly pointing out what the law currently says you cannot patent a natural occurrence, which a gene sequenced from a living organism most certainly is.

As others have mentioned, custom genes that are made in a lab and did not evolve naturally, those are perfectly reasonable to patent. Hell, even mixing and matching parts of different, naturally-occurring genes into a new gene is reasonably patentable. Patenting a naturally occurring sequence that exactly matches the gene as it has evolved to function in the cell is a gross violation of the law.

Maybe it's just the cryptoanarchist in me, but could this actually be the work of a good-intentioned gray hat hacker fed up with the botnets polluting the internet and deciding to take matters into his own hands?

I remember the article discussing one of the Conficker variations and how security experts at one firm had an opportunity to take over the botnet, if only temporarily, but chose not to do anything but collect data because attempting to "cure" the infected machines could potentially cause data loss, which the company would be liable for. When I read that, I remember thinking, "Man, where's a vigilante security expert when you need one?"

While I'm sure it would be awful for all those grandmothers and AOL users, I can't help but think the net gain would be worth it. In reinstalling their OS, they'd be much more security-conscious and make it harder for reinfections.

Hey, maybe that's what the economy needs! A massive boost to the IT industry as the unsecured masses get their OSes borked and have to get them fixed and files restored.

All that aside, I'm thinking this is probably an example of Hanlon's Razor.

That would actually be more of an argument against adult stem cells than fetal stem cells. The real benefit of fetal stem cells which is poorly expressed by most advocates, imo, is that the cells have not be subjected to a lifetime of environmental exposure to a whole host of carcinogens.

When working with adult stem cells, there's already been a significant level of genetic damage accrued by the time of the cells' harvest. Fetal stem cells, on the other hand, are as close to pristine genetic condition as is possible.

Regarding the issue with FDA testing, simply put, it's impossible. Current FDA guidelines would have every individual person's stem cells, derived from him or herself, go through clinical trials. It's those same poorly conceived guidelines that have made an unassailable barrier against bacteriophage treatments in the US, despite their long and phenomenally effective history against bacterial infections in Eastern Europe.

Furthermore, it's not going to be the pharmaceutical companies that are doing the stem cell treatments. It's going to be university labs and some of the larger hospitals associated with medical schools. We've all heard how cost-prohibitively expensive the clinical trials are for all but high-likelihood-of-success drugs, so can anyone honestly say that they think universities or hospitals, which are always strapped for cash, are going to be able to fund these clinical trials, even with massive NIH grants?

It just won't happen. The only solution is for the FDA to implement standards of treatment for the medical experts working on stem cell treatments. Patients will have to sign a mountain of informed consent forms and from that point on, everyone keeps their fingers crossed. Twenty years down the line, there may be devastating side effects, but there's absolutely no way to clinically test for it *in each individual patient* using either today's technology or Federal guidelines.

I'm pretty sure the poster mean when the experimental results are replicated independently by another lab.

Also, stem cells replicate relatively infrequently. Replication results in minor DNA damage, so the body keeps the source of new cells in as pristine a condition as possible by minimizing stem cell replication. One of the two new cells chills out until needed again while the other replicates as many time as is necessary.

That's actually one of the major concerns for adult stem cells. Taking cells from an adult, which has already endured a lifetime of genetic damage, and using them for a stem cell line is begging for some cancers to pop up. All the nastiest cancers known to man originate from stem cells. Fetal stem cells have the benefit of being the most pristine stem cells you can get.

Homebrew apps are the only reason I bought my PSP. Well, that and the FFT remake since you can't find the original PSX disks any more. The easily available game rips didn't hurt, but they didn't really contribute anything either seeing as the PSP's game library is so anemic. The homebrew community has added waaaaay more value to the PSP than anything the professional development community has added. I think Sony would be wise to reconsider their business model and, instead of selling a closed platform for licensed developers, market it as an open platform for all developers with a subscription service that provides professionally coded versions of all the homebrew apps that run seamlessly with the factory/updated software. Their current business model isn't good (due mainly to there being no games worth buying), so they really need to adapt and figure out a way to monetize their biggest selling point: hardware that is superior to the competition.

Do they really think those 38 hours bought them anything? Do they honestly believe that their profits would have been reduced had a crappy cam recording been available 38 hours earlier? I'm sorry, but I'm just not capable of managing that level of suspension of disbelief. Seems more like a set-up for a later date in Congress where movie execs get to testify that they spent $x million to stave off the camming and all they were able to manage was 38 hours. I wonder just how dedicated they were to these "delaying tactics."