Should Monsanto own patent rights on the elements of life? – Los Angeles Times: Few people realize how patent intensive the food industry has become. The top 10 seed companies account for 2/3 of all seeds sold. A huge % of the seed sold are patented. Wow! “Over an 11-year period, the cost per acre of planting soybeans has risen a dramatic 325%.” Ouch!… BUT if the yield is improved, then the added cost to…
Top 15 drug patent losses for 2013 – FiercePharma: In the usual search of the BIG patents that are about to drop off the cliff, it is always fun to see what comes up. This is a great assessment of the 2013 Patent Cliff. Wanna see what’s in store for the the next 4-5 years check out this report and forecast for pharma patents through 2018 by EvaluatePharma: http://www.evaluatepharma.com/worldpreview2018.aspx Just reviewing the past couple years you…
Iris: Setting up a smart home gets a whole lot easier. This helps to monitor the home energy use as a kind of side benefit. One of the advantages of doing this security and home management stuff yourself (DIY) is that the likelihood of actually utilizing it, and utilizing it well increases. The cost is about $10 per month for more services and longer record times, however? This probably can’t replace the home monitoring system…
How much should a hip replacement cost? Study raises more questions than answers – CBS News: Paying cash for a procedure can get wild in terms of the prices. (They did this for a similar ailment and got similar results.) Offering to pay cash, and pay up front will result in serious discounts, say 70%. But this is still a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad world of medicine. What’s missing is transparency. If you can’t figure out how much…
Electric Fiat 500 rated at 116 mpg This is a pretty cool achievement. 87 mile range. More than 100 MPGe, but other cars do that as well. Marketed as “environmentally sexy”… !:) An issue, of course is how does the electricity get generated? Pretty cool though…
Taxes, This is No Laffing Matter… A general Republican philosophy is that cutting taxes will lead to increased investment, increased economic growth AND ultimately to increased tax revenue to the government. Empirical evidence, including the article(s) discussed here bear only part of that out. True, true and not necessarily true. Reducing taxes does increase the private sector investment and it does increase economic growth. The end result of this does not necessarily result in more…
