Patent Broken?

So saith Federal Judge Robert W. Sweet. Via the New York Times:

A federal judge on Monday struck down patents on two genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The decision, if upheld, could throw into doubt the patents covering thousands of human genes and reshape the law of intellectual property.

United States District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet issued the 152-page decision [PDF], which invalidated seven patents related to the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, whose mutations have been associated with cancer.

See Also:
NY Law Journal: Genes Linked to Breast, Ovarian Cancers Are Ruled Unpatentable
Genomics Law Report: Pigs Fly: Federal Court Invalidates Myriad’s Patent Claims

RA has a new niece.

Clover Spring is her name. She lives in Virginia (for the moment). Born March 25, one day short of 2 years younger than her brother Henry Tecumseh.

Statistics: 19.5 inches long, 8 lbs 14 oz.

Hello, Spring!

John Stewart Channeled Glenn Beck

John Stewart channeled Glenn Beck (Intro, Main) last night, and it was funny...

Logorama: 2010 - Oscar-winning short

Via Filmdrunk, via Truthdig.

News Flash!

WL reports that HD has landed a new job!

Congratulations, Mr. D.

May we all be so lucky soon!

Google is the new Babelfish

The New York Times says so.

Here.

“This technology can make the language barrier go away,” said Franz Och, a principal scientist at Google who leads the company’s machine translation team. “It would allow anyone to communicate with anyone else.”

A few translations from the French give the impression that it's better than Yahoo's offering. It's less literal, more fluent.

Also... They have Swahili...