Slinger writes a humour column for the Toronto Star. Too bad more people didn't
inherit the humour gene. If they did, imagine how different the future of work would
be.
Brian McAndrews
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Science friction: Greed vs. public good
By Slinger
THE SPACE PROBE Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972. After whizzing past Jupiter and
Saturn, it whizzed past Pluto in 1983, and out of the solar system toward stars it
won't reach � even whizzing at 43,000 km/h � for several million years. Better make
that several million years plus. Pioneer 10 is slowing down.
Since there's not supposed to be anything out there to slow it down � it's why it's
called space and not, for example, the Queen Elizabeth Way � science is baffled.
The deceleration is 10 kilometres per century, but as they say in astrophysics, a
century here, a century there, it adds up.
Every obvious reason for the slowdown has been considered and discarded: gravity,
solar radiation, equipment malfunction, robot pilot talking on cellphone. Leaving one
possibility. A whole new, as yet unknown, force is at work.
Quick Science Quiz:
If you are a scientist and discover the existence of a new force in the universe, do
you
a) Try to figure out what the force is and what causes it?
b) Determine how powerful the force is and calculate the impact it will have on
cosmology and space exploration?
c) Patent the sucker?
If you answered a) or b), it's because you have forgotten the most powerful force at
work in science today: dough, moolah, scratch, spondulics, hard cash.
The long, long green.
Science once sought a cure for the common cold to relieve the suffering of humanity.
Now it seeks an initial public offering on the stock market to relieve the need for a
corporate jet.
Big word coming: hemochromatosis. It's the most common of all genetic diseases. The
symptoms are like cirrhosis. The heart fails.
The testicles � if you have 'em � turn to stone.
The gene that causes it was discovered in 1996, and for the first time testing became
widely available. Then Bio-Rad Laboratories of Hercules, Calif., began enforcing its
patent. Bio-Rad, which describes itself as "a multinational manufacturer and
distributor of life science research products and clinical diagnostics," had sales of
$817.5 million in 2001, $92 million more than in 2000. (We're talking U.S. dollars.)
Bio-Rad charges teaching hospitals that want to perform the test a licensing fee of
$25,000; private clinics are charged up to five times as much. Besides that, a royalty
of 20 per cent must be paid on whatever the clinic charges for each test.
So almost nobody is tested for hemochromatosis any more.
This year, Bio-Rad's shares rose from a low of $32 to $65.
Is there a gene for greed? It always struck me as weird that a gene could be patented
to begin with, but weird as it is, it's keeping people from getting medical treatment.
Science For Dollars isn't just a biotech game. The biggest phone company in Britain,
BT Group PLC, is taking the Internet service provider Prodigy to court in a test case
that claims BT invented, and holds the patent on, hyperlinks. For non-geeks out there,
hyperlinks are highlighted words you click on that whizz you to related Web pages.
Through Prodigy, and other companies like it, you can gain access to roughly 3 billion
pages, any one of which might contain a dozen or more hyperlinks. And every time you
click on one, BT thinks you should pay it some money.
BT's claim that it invented hyperlinks is widely regarded as � what comes after
ludicrous? Lulu City? But the fact remains that corporations are hungering to patent
the bricks and mortar of the Internet, a territory that has always been considered
free, even anarchic. Says a dumbfounded Rick Broadhead, probably the sanest and most
knowledgeable Canadian in the field, "It's like trying to patent winter."
Oh well, what the hell. If genes can be patented, why not winter? I'm not sure how it
would work, but if Enron was trading, among other mind-fragging commodities, in
something called "weather derivatives," somebody will figure it out. I've never even
been able to figure out what a derivative is.
Would we have to pay a royalty on each shovelful of snow when we clear the walk?
If genes can be patented, why not love? It stirs the genes. But love's not going to
make the world go round any more unless you pony up.
How about happiness? Happiness, unlike a season at least, probably has a genetic
cause. Everything else seems to. Depression, fatness, my need to have an awful lot of
gin when I think about all this.
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