“A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities. Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs. ‘It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent system human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products’.”
Category: ideas
Blurring Lines Between Fact And Fiction Lead To: Censorship!
The commodification of all forms of culture breeds “a growing concern that the victims of crime and their relatives be protected from distress, the emergent movement against criticism of religion and attempts to proscribe the ‘glorification’ of certain acts. The famous proscription against falsely shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre is no longer just a matter of preventing a stampede: now, shouting ‘fire’ can be censured for infringing the rights of the firemen, distressing the relatives of people killed in other fires, offending religions for whom fire is a sacred object, and glorifying or celebrating arson.”
The 10,000-Year Wonder-Clock
A clock being built in Southern California is being constructed to be accurate for 10,000 years. “Everything about this clock is deeply unusual. For example, while nearly every mechanical clock made in the last millennium consists of a series of propelled gears, this one uses a stack of mechanical binary computers capable of singling out one moment in 3.65 million days. Like other clocks, this one can track seconds, hours, days, and years. Unlike any other clock, this one is being constructed to keep track of leap centuries, the orbits of the six innermost planets in our solar system, even the ultraslow wobbles of Earth’s axis.”
Women Pull Ahead In College
There are more women than men in US colleges, and they’re scoring better too. “There are more men than women ages 18-24 in the USA — 15 million vs. 14.2 million, according to a Census Bureau estimate last year. But nationally, the male/female ratio on campus today is 43/57, a reversal from the late 1960s and well beyond the nearly even splits of the mid-1970s. The trends have developed in plain view — not ignored exactly, but typically accompanied by some version of the question: Isn’t this a sign of women’s progress?”
Habitually Rewiring Our Brains
Habits are extremely difficult to break. Why? Turns out there’s a physiological reason. “Important neural activity patterns in a specific region of the brain change when habits are formed, change again when habits are broken, but quickly re-emerge when something rekindles an extinguished habit — routines that originally took great effort to learn.”
The iPodding of America
Yes, iPods are a fine invention, and there’s no doubt that the ability to carry your entire music library with you (now with video!) is far preferable to the old one-note portable music players. But how healthy is it for everyone in America to travel around in a self-imposed isolation bubble, preferring the iPod sountrack to the sounds of the world? “Behaviors that seem weirdly antisocial when they emerge quickly take on the bland, banal tone of business as usual. Cell phone yakkers in airports and elevators barely get noticed now. And it’s no longer odd to pass someone in a grocery store aisle who’s peering intently at the tomato paste cans and chatting away into some barely visible headset.” Are those infernal white ear buds just the latest escapist plague?
When Once America Reached Out To The World With Culture
“From the late 1940s through the end of the 1980s, the American government — along with the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations — sponsored lectures and conferences abroad on American history and literature; art exhibitions featuring America’s Abstract Expressionists and postmodern painters and sculptors; international tours of jazz musicians, symphony orchestras, and ballet companies, as well as of Broadway musicals and dramas; visiting professorships where American academics taught in foreign universities…” These interactions promoted understanding. But all the programs went away and now…
Do We Still Need Copyright?
“A world without copyright is easy to imagine. The level playing field of cultural production – a market accessible for everyone – would once again be restored. A world without copyright would offer the guarantee of a good income to many artists, and would protect the public domain of knowledge and creativity. And members of the public would get what they are entitled to: a surprisingly rich and varied menu of artistic alternatives.”
When Copyrighters Own The Space Around You
“Today, anyone armed with a video camera and movie-editing software can make a documentary. But can everyone afford to make it legally? Clearance costs – licensing fees paid to copyright holders for permission to use material like music, archival photographs and film and news clips – can send expenses for filmmakers soaring into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
When The CIA Was In The Culture Business
“The target audience for cultural propaganda in the Cold War was foreign élites—in particular, left-wing intellectuals and avant-garde writers and artists who might still have some attachment, sincere, sentimental, or opportunistic, to Communism and the Soviet Union. The essence of the courtship was: it’s possible to be left-wing, avant-garde, and anti-Communist. Look at these American artists and intellectuals, happily criticizing bourgeois capitalism and shocking mainstream tastes, all safely protected by the laws of a free society.”