America’s hottest export – [Article]

The demand for American sperm is increasing around the world, & not because of what you think:

 It’s not about the superior fitness of American males, exactly. One reason is that the US’s immigration history means lots of ethnic diversity. For some would-be mothers from other parts of the world, this can give US product a leg up over places like Denmark, another sperm exporting powerhouse.

Another is all that tracking and testing: the U.S. has some of the world’s highest standards for disease testing and donor screening. The FDA defines sperm as human tissue, and regulates it much as it does the donation of organs. 

On the differences between copyright, patents, and trademarks [Article]

Richard Stallman strongly advocates against lumping the three terms to mean “intellectual property”.

Copyright law was designed to promote authorship and art, and covers the details of expression of a work. Patent law was intended to promote the publication of useful ideas, at the price of giving the one who publishes an idea a temporary monopoly over it—a price that may be worth paying in some fields and not in others.
Trademark law, by contrast, was not intended to promote any particular way of acting, but simply to enable buyers to know what they are buying. Legislators under the influence of the term “intellectual property”, however, have turned it into a scheme that provides incentives for advertising.

Shell Shocked by the Sounds of the Seas [Article]

SteStefan Helmreich discovers the mysteries of the sounds of the sea:

For generations, people who live by the sea have held that, when pressed to the ear, seashells resound with something like the roar of the ocean—a sensation whose explanation has offered a puzzle pleasurable and provocative to scientists and lay listeners alike.


Spam origin experiment – [Article]

T Rob shares the story, and a couple of tricks, of his experiment to control spam mail:

The problem with spam is you can’t really tell where it comes from.  If you have an email address that you never use, you probably don’t get too much spam there.  But if you use the same email address for everything, it gradually gets more and more spam until you are forced to abandon it.  That suggests that the address leaks out with some specific activities online, but which ones? 

A step by step guide to mindfulness – How to sit in a chair & drink tea [Article]

David Cain has an exercise for all of us busy folks who can barely enjoy our daily cuppa. 

It’s actually an indulgence. That’s not to say, however, that you’re taking from yourself more than you’re giving. Most indulgences are pleasures borrowed from your health or sanity — mindless entertainment, processed food, booze or needless shopping. But not in this case. You’re making your pleasure from the cleanest ingredients: leaves, water, and time.

David blogs at www.raptitude.com 

the Pharma companies drug war in India [Article]

The Indian Supreme Court’s decision to allow Indian makers of generic drugs to continue making copycat versions of the drug Gleevec (manufactured by Novartis) is lauded by Richard Stallman who has this to say:

Novartis responded to the decision by threatening to arbitrarily withhold other drugs from India, causing sick people there to die. Presumably these will be drugs which are in fact patented, drugs not affected by this decision. That shows this is not a self-protective reaction, but a murderous threat. In the absence of free exploitation treaties such as the WTO, India would respond to the threat by making those drugs locally. Novartis’ death threats are mere bluster, unless the WTO gives them force; and that reveals the murderous nature of the WTO. As for the pretense that the abuse of medical patents is “necessary” for the sake of research, we already know this is bogus. The big pharma companies spend more on advertising and corrupting doctors than on research, and little of their research goes into life-saving drugs anyway. Patents on drugs should be banned except in the wealthiest countries. There is a very simple solution: get rid of the WTO. It undermines democracy and it does harm to people in many other ways