Category: Items of Interest

Donate to CosmoQuest

The lovely and talented folks at CosmoQuest are raising funds to keep their programs and staff going. Those programs include a variety of outreach and citizen science projects. Changes due to sequestration and the way that science education is being funded by the US government has left valuable programs like CosmoQuest with uncertain futures.

On March 22, 2013 we found out that many NASA EPO programs will be suspended as a direct result of US budgetary sequestration. The full ramifications are still being learned, but we are proactively working to raise money to make sure that CosmoQuest can continue to support its staff and its programs. As we are able, we will also use any monies we raise to contract amazing people whose jobs are negatively impacted by budgetary cuts.

Donate now to help keep CosmoQuest going, any amount helps.

I wonder if it will be friends with me?

“The Sperm Whale and the bowl of Petunias” by Stefan Schindler (All Rights Reserved; Used with Permission)

If you are incapable of loving this LEGO vignette based on the whale and bowl of petunias scene from Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then you and I can no longer be friends.

My four year-old loves the perspective created by the miniature trees and mountain.

I appreciate that the work captures the idea that the terminal velocity of the bowl of petunias would be lower than that of the sperm whale, and that creator Stefan Schindler is a fan of science:

I’m also a great enthusiast of the scientific method and reason…

His LEGO renderings of the ATV-4 “Albert Einstein” space vehicle and his favorite t-shirt (a play on a classic evolution image) lends credibility to that statement.

*Hat tip to Ralph at The Brothers Brick.

Lois Drive? Really?

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I think I can speak for everyone that drives the Oates Highway between Hartsville and I-20, especially in the north bound direction, when I say, “What were you thinking?”

Would it have killed you to go with Lois Lane? I know it is a cheap joke, but, come on, just a little giggle. It’d be like an IRL easter egg.

Lois Drive Map

MLF – Mermaid Liberation Front

I did not watch the Animal Planet fake mermaids documentary. I was busy watching The Little Mermaid with my kids. Contrary to popular opinion, the funniest part of this movie is not Sebastian trying to avoid being cooked or Scuttle mistaking a fork for a comb and calling it a “dingle hopper”.

It’s that poor, naive Ariel thinks young women are more liberated in Renaissance Europe than in Triton’s undersea kingdom:

Betcha on land they understand
That they don’t reprimand their daughters
–Little Mermaid, “Part of Your World” (by Alan Menken & Howard Ashman)

Held: Genes are products of nature

Today the US Supreme Court rules that there cannot be patents on genomic DNA information (PDF – 139kb), only modified DNA products like cDNA. Note that the decision was effectively unanimous, the opinion was written by Thomas, and Scalia’s concurrent opinion is essentially an admission of ignorance in the specialty field. I have not had time to read the full opinion, but at initial review this seems like a very reasonable result. Naturally occurring DNA sequences are, well, natural. Sequences modified with intent may be patent eligible. It will be interesting to see in the future if discovery of naturally occurring sequences that are identical to patented sequences modified naively to match a natural variant will invalidate patents.

Myriad’s DNA claim falls within the law of nature exception.Myriad’s principal contribution was uncovering the precise location and genetic sequence of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes…Myriad did not create or alter either the genetic information encoded in the BCRA1 and BCRA2 genes or the genetic structure of the DNA. It found an important and useful gene, but groundbreaking, innovative, or even brilliant discovery does not by itself satisfy the §101 inquiry…Myriad’s patent descriptions highlight the problem with its claims: They detail the extensive process of discovery, but extensive effort alone is insufficient to satisfy §101’s demands. Myriad’s claims are not saved by the fact that isolating DNA from the human genome severs the chemical bonds that bind gene molecules together. – SCOTUS (PDF -139kb)