Thursday Morning Tech News
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on August 4, 2005 at 2:30:08 PM
Patent reform is hard. Easy fix: Destroy software patents and BOGUS patents.
NASA checks thermal blanket damage.
Found: Hidden Black Holes.
Asian bird flu may cause many deaths.
Bush stupidly threatens to veto stem cell legislation. The House and the Senate can push this through.
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The issue is coming to a head in Washington, where committees in the House and Senate are planning hearings on a host of proposals to change the nation's patent law and how the Patent and Trademark Office operates. The ideas being proposed run a wide gamut, from forcing patent holders to license their inventions to others, to the elimination of software patents altogether.
NASA checks thermal blanket damage.
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Pictures of the orbiter have shown a deformed and billowed blanket just underneath the left window, at which shuttle commander Eileen Collins sits. The puffed-up part of the blanket stretches 51 centimetres (20 inches) across. Engineers are concerned that a piece of the blanket could be ripped off during re-entry to the atmosphere. They estimate that the largest piece blown loose would be 23 grams (0.05 pounds).
Found: Hidden Black Holes.
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The most active black holes eat so voraciously that they create a colossal cloud of gas and dust around them, through which astronomers cannot peer. That sometimes prevents observations of the region nearest the black hole, making it impossible to verify what's actually there.
Asian bird flu may cause many deaths.
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If Asian bird flu mutates into a form that spreads easily between humans, an outbreak of just 40 infected people would be enough to cause a global pandemic. And within a year half of the world’s population would be infected with a mortality rate of 50%, according to two studies released on Wednesday.
Bush stupidly threatens to veto stem cell legislation. The House and the Senate can push this through.
Quote
The bill, approved in the House and likely to come up in the Senate after the August recess, would allow federally funded research on stem cells derived from leftover embryos in fertility clinics. There are currently about 400,000 such frozen embryos, many of which will otherwise be destroyed. "They have the prerogative to pass laws. I have the prerogative to set limits on what I think is right," Bush said of congressional efforts to lift the restrictions he imposed.