tisiwoota

“Conservation Medicine” is a new field emerging in response to the disciplinary gaps that have been put in the spotlight by avian flu et al. Fusing health and ecological sciences, as a new virology report in Science points out, will make it possible to better address questions calling on expertise in both disciplines.

For example, in regards to bats (recently found to be hosts for SARS):

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We do not know whether [the physiological traits associated with flying] allow these ancient mammals to differ from other mammals in the way they combat potential viral infections. Are there differences in the functionality or type of receptors required for infection? Are there bat antiviral proteins (interferons) that can stop viral replication as in other mammals, or do bats possess a mechanism to prevent their inactivation? Alternatively, we could ask if bats possess a novel innate immunity that allows them to cope with certain classes of viruses in ways that other mammals cannot. If the latter is the case, then what would studies of bat immunity tell us about new ways to attack and treat viral diseases? The literature is silent on this. Very few medical schools have experimental bat colonies, and work in this area may be a little “outside the box” for conservative funding agencies.

Knowing more about bats, and particularly more about bat ecology and immunology, is crucial if we are to develop new treatments and ways to control the viral diseases that are an increasing threat to humans. Assuming we can control these diseases by simply controlling bats is both naïve and short-sighted. Instead, we must recognize that increased rates of spillover-mediated pathogen transmission from bats to humans may simply reflect an increase in their contact through anthropogenic modification of the bat’s natural environment. The emergence of Nipah virus and SARS-CoV epitomizes this situation. In regions where large areas of bat habitat have been converted to agricultural land or oil palm plantations, the surviving bat populations will be concentrated in the remaining patches of forest that provide the resources they need. When these patches of fruit trees are used as shade for intensive animal husbandry, then it is highly likely that the fruits and insects chewed by bats will find their way into the human food chain.
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On a personal note, I will say for the record that it saddened me to learn that bats were discovered to be SARS vectors. I’ve always had a soft spot for bats, seeing as I was a member of Bat Conservation International every year between the ages of 10 and… 23? 24? And built several bat-houses in my day… I’ve always felt sympathetic to to those misunderstood and often unjustly demonized creatures… and well, it’s sad to think how some places will no doubt rush into mass bat destruction even though it is unlikely to make a significant dent in the problem…

Via Women’s Bioethics Blog, an article from the Guardian:

A clinical trial into the effects of allowing couples to choose the sex of their babies has been given the go-ahead at a US fertility clinic. The controversial study was given the green light by an ethics committee after nine years of consultation. The purpose of the study is to find out how cultural notions, family values and gender issues feed into a couple’s desire to choose the gender of their child.

…I didn’t know there was something worse afoot than the Dover Trial (and some spats in museums and National Parks here and there).

But looks like Kansas is one-upping Dover on this one.

Two leading science organizations have denied the Kansas Board of Education permission to use their copyrighted materials as part of the state’s proposed new science standards because of the standards’ critical approach to evolution.

At least this story characterizes the point accurately: That the ID standards “single out evolution… and change the definition of science itself so that it is not restricted to the study of natural phenomena.” [emphasis added]

Whereas distressingly much lay newspaper reporting on the subject falls prey to the false balance effect.

…

Ay.

See also William Saletan’s article on the Dover Trial: Monty Python’s Flying Creationism

This country seems to be practically willing itself into irrelevancy in the global marketplace these days. As if we weren’t happening heading toward trouble already….

Can’t get enough Civil Procedure?

Yeah, I thought so.

Fortunately, I’ve found another small way you can satisfy that incessant craving: The ACLU of Pennsylvania, which is covering the “Intelligent Design Trial”, recently reported that the trial judge struck down a friend-of-the-court brief from the pro-ID “Discovery Institute”. But the ACLU did not merely report the news; they also provide links to the Plaintiff’s motion to strike [pdf] and the Judge’s order [pdf]. So now you can see for yourselves what a real, live motion looks like!

Excerpt from Motion to strike:
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…But Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure [See? Don’t you just feel a tingle of adrenaline already?] and Supreme Court Rule 37, for example, both require the parties’ consent or leave of court to file an amicus brief, thus ensuring that would-be amici properly identify themselves, demonstrate an appropriate interest in the litigation, offer something useful to the court, and give the parties an opportunity to respond to their arguments. Those same concerns are appropriate to this Court’s determination whether to accept the briefs.

…Supreme Court Rule 37.1 strongly suggests that a proper amicus brief brings to the Court’s attention only (i) relevant matter that (ii) has not been presented by the parties and (iii) would be helpful to the Court in deciding the case. S. Ct. Rule 37.1. Amicus briefs that depart from that model “burden[]” the Court, and their filing is therefore generally disfavored. Id. The district courts, moreover, apply similar criteria in deciding whether to accept amicus briefs. See, e.g., Avellino v. Herron, 991 F. Supp. 730, 732 (E.D. Pa. 1998) (district court “may” grant leave to appear as amicus curiae if information offered is “timely and useful”); Waste Management, 162 F.R.D. at 36 (same).
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And from Judge’s Memorandum and Order:

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As all parties and amici filers are well aware, both Mr. Dembski and Mr. Meyer are no longer expert witnesses for the Defendants. Over the course of this trial we have provided both parties with every opportunity to present their expert witnesses, and accordingly the parties have engaged in thorough cross-examination of the opposing experts. We thus find it to be fundamentally unfair to receive a brief that frequently references an expert report, that was originally prepared for use in this case when Mr. Meyer was to be offered as a defense expert witness, and which contains the full revised report of Mr. Meyer as an attachment to the brief. The inclusion of such information in an ad hoc unsolicited fashion, when Plaintiffs have not had the opportunity to cross-examine such expert witness is clearly inappropriate under the circumstances.

In fact, “Appendix A” of the amicus brief is entitled “Revised Report of Stephen C. Meyer, Ph.D., May 19, 2005” and clearly an expert report prepared in anticipation of Mr. Meyer’s testimony at trial. We will not countenance what is clearly a “back door” attempt to insert expert testimony into the record free of the crucible of trial and cross-examination.

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED THAT:

1. Plaintiffs’ Motion to Strike “Brief of Amici Curiae Biologists and Other Scientists in Support of Defendants” and “Brief of Amicus
Curiae, the Discovery Institute” (doc. 265) is granted in part and denied in part to the following extent:

a. Plaintiffs’ Motion is granted to the extent that the “Brief of Amicus Curiae, The Discovery Institute” is stricken in its entirety.
b. In the event that the Discovery Institute requests to re-file an amicus curiae brief, it shall file such brief in accordance with this Order and shall concurrently file a motion with the Court seeking leave to file such brief.
c. The Motion is denied in all other respects.
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And with that, I go now to sleep– not to imply, of course, any tiredness from reading civil procedure (or anything else), but rather because, um, the sooner I get to sleep, the quicker time will pass until it’s time for civil procedure class… Of course.

Via BoingBoing and The New Yorker: There’s apparently an old tradition in the encyclopedia biz to insert one fake entry per edition, in order to more easily identify copyright infringers who have relied on the original work in making knockoffs.

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[W]hen word leaked out that the recently published second edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary contains a made-up word that starts with the letter “e,” an independent investigator set himself the task of sifting through NOAD’s thirty-one hundred and twenty-eight “e” entries in search of the phony. The investigator first removed from contention any word that was easily recognized or that appears in Webster’s Third New International; the remaining three hundred and sixty words were then vetted with a battery of references.
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The fake turned out to be “esquivalience”, defined as n. the willful avoidance of one’s official responsibilities . . . late 19th cent.: perhaps from French esquiver, “dodge, slink away.”

Experts cited various reasons for being suspicious about this entry:

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“’It’s just trying a little too hard,’ said Wendalyn Nichols, the editor-in-chief of the newsletter “Copy Editor” and a onetime editorial director of Random House Reference. “If it’s derived from esquiver, it wouldn’t have that ending. Nothing linguistically would give rise to the ‘l.’ ” The Times’ crossword-puzzle editor, Will Shortz, explained, “I simply can’t believe such a thing goes back to the nineteenth century.” Steve Kleinedler, a senior editor of the American Heritage Dictionary, said, “The stress pattern is strange.” The most personal of the rationales belonged to Eli Horowitz, an editor of the literary anthology “The Future Dictionary of America,” who complained, “I had to read it a few times, and I resent that.”
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The fake-word practice reminds me of the game Balderdash, in which players are given weird, but real words, and have to guess at the actual meaning from a choice of several fakes made up by the other players.

Anyway.

It provokes an ironic impulse to start a campaign to put “esquivalience” into common usage enough to turn it into a real word…

So I was just thinking how I rather like pop songs set to waltz tempo, since I happen to have three on my playlists: one from Fiona Apple’s new album, and the other two from Elliott Smith’s XO. And now I’m wondering what others might be out there (how awesome would it be to have a mix of pop-waltzes? Surely at least worth a novelty listen…).

Tomorrow perhaps I’ll break down and try a google-search, but does anyone happen to know other examples off-hand?

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Update: I’ve been referred to more…

Kanye West’s “Spaceship”
Julie Delpy’s “Waltz for a Night’ from the ‘Before Sunset’ soundtrack

And see Parker’s comment below…

And ahhh, how I miss the halycon days of unbridled Napster usage… it would come in so handy right now…

Last week I happened to catch the tail-end of a conference on the Supreme Court. The focus of the panel was “Retirement”– specifically, how to get the Justices to retire at a reasonable age and stop hanging on till they fall apart. After rejecting the idea of setting a mandatory retirement age (partly on the ground that it would be arbitrary, and partly because… well, I can’t remember the other reasons), one of the speakers proposed various incentives that would let the Justices have some discretion in deciding how long to keep working.

* Golden parachute option.

* Make the job less cushy: Increase the workload, by increasing the caseload (which has over the past fifteen years has decreased from ~115 cases/yr to ~80/cases a year), and downsizing the number of clerks the justices are allowed. Also, reinstate “circuit-riding”– ie, make the Justices sit on Federal Courts for some period of weeks in the summer. This apparently used to be a practice during the first 12 years of our nation’s existence, but was discontinued because of the arduousness of travel (one early justice died from having to endure the southern heat) and the length of the schedule (then up to half the year). Those objections now being obsolete, reinstating the practice would not only serve to make the job less “cushy”, but would also help familiarize Justices with the procedural issues facing lower courts (desirable since the Supreme Ct. often has to adjudicate on federal rules of procedure) and with concerns in different geographic regions.

* Decrease the prestige of the position by:
1) adding more justices [the worst suggestion IMHO– any benefits in terms of changed retirement age would I think be more than offset by the costs. Anyone who has ever done group work in school knows that the larger a group gets, the less efficient, and the more prone to internal division it becomes].
2) Allowing retired Justices to continue to serve in an advisory capacity, and sometimes fill in when other Justices are recused or ill. Thus retirees wouldn’t feel the loss of prestige so keenly. The speaker didn’t use this word, but I understood this to be analagous to “emeritus” positions for ex-professors. The speaker also suggested that ex-Justices be allowed to keep offices in the Supreme Court building– apparently as it is now, they get kicked out and relocated many blocks away from their practically-lifelong colleagues (the description sounded pretty lonely– no wonder they want to stick around!).

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This discussion of career re-structuring brought to mind Senator Kerry’s campaign proposals for addressing teacher burn-out. I remember the website pointing out that one of the reasons teachers have issues with long-term career fulfillment is that there is no higher “rung” of professional recognition for them to strive for over the course of their career. The suggested solution was something along the lines of creating a formalized role wherein “Senior Teachers” would have a greater voice in shaping state curriculums, and would mentor younger teachers, offer instruction in teaching methods to other districts, etc.

Which opens up the broader question of what other career paths could benefit from “re-structuring” to become more fulfilling.

…A thought for another day, though, since I should get to sleep!

I love that Obama is engaged with the blogosphere. And he writes so diplomatically. I have so much more respect for politicians who can actually write for themselves rather than just rely on their PR staff. It sounds so much more authentic anyway. Doesn’t hurt that he’s expressing my sentiments exactly– it’s the decline of respect for the ideals of civil debate that has allowed ideological extremism to flourish and put a stranglehold on national politics. Escalating your own rhetoric only empowers the other side to muddy issues even further. Keep your own arguments fair and rigorous, and you encourage those who want to be reasonable to step out of the woodwork to help achieve something constructive.

Quoth Obama:

>> I completely agree that the Democrats needs to present and fight for a clearly stated set of core convictions, and that we have not done so as effectively as we need to over the past several election cycles. We can insist on being principled about the ends we are trying to achieve (e.g. educational opportunity and basic health care for all Americans, honest and accountable government, etc.), without sacrificing our commitment to open debate, intellectual honesty, and civility. I think its the right thing to do and I also think it will help us win.

I also agree that it is the job of Democratic elected officials to help shape public opinion, and not just respond passively to opinion thats been aggressively shaped by the Republicans PR machinery. I am simply suggesting, based on my experience, that people will respond to a powerfully progressive agenda when its couched in optimism, pragmatism and our shared American ideals.

That’s the motto of MOBA, the Museum of Bad Art. Striking pieces, all. Each accompanied by crisp, insightful commentary to guide the untrained eye in discerning and interpreting the qualities that make the works so… unique.

Intro to one of the galleries:

Unseen Forces is a preeminent collection of artwork, expressing as it does the full scope of the human psyche and its feeble yet caring yet terrified use of artists’ materials and symbols such as the word “Love.”

Indeed, it is not an easy thing to struggle against mighty forces like the giant orange cat consuming humankind. The artists here do not stoop to common human endeavors and limitations and only sometimes rise up to them.

To get a better understanding of the framework of international intellectual property law that relates to the Tamiflu issue, you can check out the WTO’s fact sheet on the TRIPS Agreement, which includes an overview of compulsory licensing:

COMPULSORY LICENSING

Compulsory licensing is when a government allows someone else to produce the patented product or process without the consent of the patent owner. In current public discussion, this is usually associated with pharmaceuticals, but it could also apply to patents in any field.

The agreement allows compulsory licensing as part of the agreement’s overall attempt to strike a balance between promoting access to existing drugs and promoting research and development into new drugs. But the term “compulsory licensing” does not appear in the TRIPS Agreement. Instead, the phrase “other use without authorization of the right holder” appears in the title of Article 31. Compulsory licensing is only part of this since “other use” includes use by governments for their own purposes.

Compulsory licensing and government use of a patent without the authorization of its owner can only be done under a number of conditions aimed at protecting the legitimate interests of the patent holder.

For example: Normally, the person or company applying for a licence must have first attempted, unsuccessfully, to obtain a voluntary licence from the right holder on reasonable commercial terms — Article 31b. If a compulsory licence is issued, adequate remuneration must still be paid to the patent holder — Article 31h.

However, for “national emergencies”, “other circumstances of extreme urgency” or “public non-commercial use” (or “government use”) or anti-competitive practices, there is no need to try for a voluntary licence — Article 31b.

Compulsory licensing must meet certain additional requirements. In particular, it cannot be given exclusively to licensees (e.g. the patent-holder can continue to produce), and usually it must be granted mainly to supply the domestic market. Compulsory licensing cannot be arbitrary

WHAT ARE THE GROUNDS FOR USING COMPULSORY LICENSING?

The TRIPS Agreement does not specifically list the reasons that might be used to justify compulsory licensing. In Article 31, it does mention national emergencies, other circumstances of extreme urgency and anti-competitive practices — but only as grounds when some of the normal requirements for compulsory licensing do not apply, such as the need to try for a voluntary licence first. Doha declaration 5(b) and (c).

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UPDATE: WTO now also has an FAQ on compulsory licensing, which you might find more accessible reading than the above.

Drug-maker Roche yesterday announced that it would be willing to consider granting licenses for other companies to make its antiviral Tamiflu, after initially refusing to weaken its hold on the patent rights in the event of a pandemic.

Health GAP responds:

Roche’s offer of voluntary licenses is illusory in its present form. First, Roche says that it is prepared to “discuss” licenses, but does
not promise to issue any licenses whatsoever or even to expedite the normal slow pace of licensing negotiations. Second, Roche’s offer does not clarify whether licenses will have restrictive pricing terms whereby Roche can set the selling price and/or require an above-market royalty rate. (Roche could be suggesting that it will cooperate to increase quantities but that it will not reduce price.) Third, Roche does not clarify whether it will impose geographical limitations on sales, thereby limiting access to disfavored markets only. Fourth, Roche does not clarify that it will license manufacturing expertise so that generic products can be brought to market more quickly. Finally, Roche does not clarify that it will assist licensees in obtaining product registration and marketing approval on an expedited basis even where data exclusivity rules might otherwise block registration.