This is a cool article in Science by Ed Young about a giant corn varietal in Sierra Mixe Mexico that grows in very poor soil, but actually fertilizes itself. There’s a bacteria that grows around the roots that absorbs nitrogen from the air and provides it to the corn. The team of researchers led by Alan Bennett from UC Davis referred to this a “Nitrogen Fixing” which works just like roots absorbing nitrogen from the soil. In…
Putting the Status of Liberty on a US stamp seems like a no brainer, send someone out to take an original picture of miss liberty, stamp it and run. Or, get full rights to a picture, modify it to your hearts content — maybe make her happier to be holding up so well after most of a century in the New York weather! (Maybe add a Mono Lisa Smile!?)… But, often, copyrights may not be…
Venezuela’s ‘Petro’ Token Launches in Pre-Sale – CoinDesk: Is it an ICO or an IKO. There has been a new trend that is catching fire, to do an initial public offering (IPO) in cyber/cryptocurrency coins, or ICO. Venezuela, with a failed currency in a failed state, is doing a very novel approach their new ICO offering is to be backed by a small portion of their vast oil reserves. And the coin will be called…
The America Invents Act (AIA) was passed in 2011 and we are about to start the eighth year since its inception. (See description hereincluded such changes as a move to “first to file” from “first to invent”.) Intellectual Property time since then has been, to say the least, tumultuous. We have seen significant Supreme Court decisions, the rise and spread of the troll as an intimidator of patent-owning small and medium size businesses and infringement…
Newly Discovered Garbage Patch in the South Pacific Is 1.5 Times the Size of Texas, Study Says | The Weather Channel: Let’s TRASH it ! Speaking of trash. We keep making it. We box it, we stack it. We keep spreading it liberally around the world. We keep taking the planet for granted. !!! … Check out the Great Pacific Garbage Patch at Wikipedia. Note the visualization of ocean flows using ocean buoys (off to…
One might characterize the patent market of the past several years as a herd of elephants fighting over the last leaves on a tree. This might be somewhat crude to many but a scan of the landscape of Fortune-100 corporations spending millions litigating accusations of infringement or suing for infringement makes a case. Or, the flooding of the PTAB with requests for IPR (inter partes review procedure) to determine patent validity also…
