And they jump out of buckets of water anyway. I work with frogs. If the tupperware lids aren't closed, they'll jump out, even in the refrigerator.

... this is not the first time I've realized I have a fucking weird job.

New? Oh right. Only Obama has used his executive powers. I forgot.

Did you read the summary or any of TFAs?

Seriously. Unless I'm utterly failing at reading comprehension (considering I'm late for something, I might be) this is exactly the opposite of what you're saying. This sounds like a move to prevent CISPA/SOPA from rising from the grave. The ACLU and EFF are in favor of it and were opposed to CISPA/SOPA.

COnsidering there were reports from "sources" that Obama would enact CISPA, I'm a little hesitant to jump for joy. And again, I was only skimming.

I strongly disagree. The two party system isn't the cause. It's the cost of campaigning and apathy on the part of the voters that keep corporations winning. Corporations can buy off any number of parties, like they do in plenty of other countries with more than two parties. Voters could easily vote for candidates who would get tough on white collar crime in both parties. They don't simply because they don't care and they get flooded with commercials for pro-corporate candidates.

One wonders when or if we'll reach a tipping point where voters realize that overgrown corporations and overgrown governments both can threaten their rights. Especially when they intertwine. Maybe voters will at that point start actually taking back control of regulatory agencies. Crazier things have happened, and revolutions often happen when no one is expecting them.

According to their FAQ, they're only publishing biological and medical research. You can do some meaningful research on bioinformatics with just a computer I suppose, but really, most of the research, $100 is going to be insignificant. And there's nothing to say they wouldn't waive the fee if you absolutely couldn't pay it.

I'm not quite clear on where the $3000 per article costs are coming from though. Reviewers aren't paid in most journals. Printing costs aren't an issue: I'm not sure many journals still offer print versions aside from the really big name ones, and I suspect they'll be going online-only shortly. I'm not sure how much editors get paid. That might be quite the racket, but I get the impression that a lot of editors do it for cheap or free. I can't imagine copy editors get paid that much.

Some journals seem to spend a lot on promoting themselves at conferences and such. I'd assume that's where most of the costs come in. The journals run their own ads, so they should be generating revenue.

eLife is a recently launched open access journal. They're funded by several universities, the publishing fees will be waived for a while, presumably until they build up enough steam to start charging for it (at least according to the rep I was talking to.) So they're sort of doing the experiment: if the journal flops immediately upon going pay-to-publish, or if it flops before then, that will be a test of how viable such a model would be.

Sadly he's describing gradualism. Which doesn't appear to amount to much in evolutionary history. Hence the fact that there are still stupid people around.

"sources" say, anyway.

Tissue culture is more expensive than mice in many cases. I'm not sure circulatory systems are well modeled in tissue culture yet anyway. So few agencies would be willing to fund it, they'd say "why don't you just do it in mice." At least, before this study.

Undoubtedly an extremely small fraction of the number of cases in which the opposite happens: drug shows promise in cell culture or mouse trials, has no effect in humans or is toxic.

Any volunteers to have doctors intentionally give you blood poisoning, then take experimental drugs to cure it? Keep in mind that a quarter of those TREATED for sepsis will die, and naturally you wouldn't be able to take other treatments or that would cloud the results. So you'll die of sepsis, unless the drugs they're testing kills you first.

Anyone volunteering, you've clearly got some problems and would be unsuitable to study anyway. And forcing people to participate in the research and letting them die has its own problems.

Researchers already knew that mice models were far from perfect. Anyone paying any attention to biomedical research knows that if some amazing cure is demonstrated in mice, it will likely never be heard of again since it didn't pan out. It's important to realize if one hadn't already that mice weren't perfect models for humans, but it's also important to realize that drug testing in mice IS necessary.

Does the "how" really matter? Money has always and will always find influence in politics. You can spend your entire life fighting to close loopholes to try to keep it out, but there will always be more, and new ones opening up. And if you actually close one, your chances of having enough influence to close another one will vanish.

Anyway, lobbyist money only succeeds in the presence of public apathy. If the voters don't give a shit that US businesses are writing their laws, no law concerning lobbyists is going to keep the businesses from doing so.

And do you see people coming up with such passwords often?

Hmm... you're familiar with most banking online systems?

You almost had me convinced to make a super easy bank password. Nice try, identity thief!