Posts Tagged ‘Patent’
“The business of America is business”*…
A pair of Georgia Tech computer science students have created a Random Startup Website Generator that spits out a different jargon-laden startup website every time you click on “Get Started”.
Try it here; more background here.
* Calvin Coolidge
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As we prepare for our IPOs, we might recall that it was on this date in 1796 that the first U.S. patent for a pill of any kind was issued to Samuel Lee, Jr., of Connecticut, for a “Composition of bilious pills” which he renewed in 1810 and marketed as “Lee’s Windham Pills.” Made up of “gamboge, aloes, soap, and nitrate of potassa,” the pills were of uncertain medical value– but were a huge hit. Indeed, a second Samuel Lee (Samuel H.P. Lee, who had worked as an agent for the first Sam) began marketing a knock-off– which occasioned one of the young country’s first patent fights.
“We mostly don’t get sick. Most often, bacteria are keeping us well”*…
E. coli bacteria
Food picked up just a few seconds after being dropped is less likely to contain bacteria than if it is left for longer periods of time, according to the findings of research carried out at Aston University’s School of Life and Health Sciences.
The findings suggest there may be some scientific basis to the ‘5 second rule’ – the urban myth about it being fine to eat food that has only had contact with the floor for five seconds or less. Although people have long followed the 5 second rule, until now it was unclear whether it actually helped.
The study, undertaken by final year Biology students and led by Anthony Hilton, Professor of Microbiology at Aston University, monitored the transfer of the common bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) and Staphylococcus aureus from a variety of indoor floor types (carpet, laminate and tiled surfaces) to toast, pasta, biscuit and a sticky sweet when contact was made from 3 to 30 seconds…
Read the reassuring details at “Researchers prove the five second rule is real.”
The [Five Second Rule] has many variations, including The Three Second Rule, The Seven Second Rule, and the extremely handy and versatile The However Long It Takes Me to Pick Up This Food Rule.
-Neil Pasricha
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As we waste not so as to want not, we might send synthetic birthday greetings to Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty; he was born on this date in 1938. A microbiologist with specialties in directed evolution and genetic engineering, he created a new single cell life form, the Pseudomonas bacterium (now called Burkholderia cepacia) while working at G.E. The microorganism had the had the potential to clean up toxic spills, due to its ability to break down crude oil into simpler substances that could become food for aquatic life (an ability possessed by no naturally occurring bacteria).
Chakrabarty applied for a patent on his creation– the first U.S. patent for a genetically modified organism. (U.S. utility patents had been granted to living organisms before, including two pure bacterial cultures, patented by Louis Pasteur. Chakrabarty’s modified bacterium was granted a patent in the U.K. before the U.S. patent came through.) He was initially denied the patent by the Patent Office because it was thought that the patent code precluded patents on living organisms. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, where in 1980 the Justices granted the patent (Diamond v. Chakrabarty)– a decision that paved the way for many patents on genetically modified micro-organisms and other life forms, and catapulted Chakrabarty into the international spotlight.
Digital wrongs…
Readers experience DRM– digital rights management– everyday, as a feature of the software they use and the entertainment they consume; it turns out that one doesn’t buy the services and experiences one thinks one’s buying; one rents them– on restrictive terms specified by the provider. Those providers take their rules very seriously indeed: they monitor their customer’s behavior for transgressions, sue their customers whenever they suspect a violation (c.f., here and here, for instance), and work surreptitiously with governments to extend their controls abroad (e.g., here).
Their success-to-date hasn’t gone unnoticed by those selling atoms as opposed to bits. Monsanto, for example, patents its seeds and licenses them to farmers, so that those farmers can’t use the seeds from their crops to replant– as for centuries they have– they must repurchase (or relicense). And like the litigious software and entertainment giants, Monsanto aggressively protects its interest through law suits.
Where might all of this end? A group of eight designers competing in The Deconstruction, gave us a peak:
The DRM Chair has only a limited number of use before it self-destructs. The number of use was set to 8, so everyone could sit down and enjoy a single time the chair.
A small sensor detects when someone sits and decrements a counter. Every time someone sits up, the chair knocks a number of time to signal how many uses are left. When reaching zero, the self-destruct system is turned on and the structural joints of the chair are melted…
[TotH to Hexus]
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As we decide to stand up, we might recall that, while dentures date back (at least) to the Etruscans circa 700 BCE, it was on this date in 1822 that Charles M. Graham of New York City received the first US patent for artificial teeth.
“A paperclip can be a wondrous thing. More times than I can remember, one of these has gotten me out of a tight spot”…
“For the past seven years I have done nothing but travel around the world getting shot up, locked up, blown up … and all I have to show for it are a couple of empty rolls of duct tape.”
– MacGyver (MacGyver, Season Two, “Friends”)
Readers of a certain age will remember MacGyver– the man-with-a-mullet who, from 1985 through 1992, fashioned jury-rigged solutions to the dangerous problems that were his weekly lot as the secret agent star of his eponymously-titled TV series.
Now Fathom Information Design has compiled an interactive collection of every “recipe” from the show…
click the image above, or here
Have you ever wondered in how many different episodes MacGyver has made an arc welder (answer: 3 times in episodes 6, 52, and 87)? Or perhaps you forgot about your favorite episode (season 1, episode 12) when Mac escapes via a casket that transforms into a jetski. And how many times has Mac made a diversion? In order to placate all of your MacGyver-related curiosities, we offer you MacRecipes.
We assembled data from MacGyverOnline and IMDB, and using Processing and Processing.js we produced the ultimate MacGyver recipe book. Click on any of the recipes to see information about the ingredients as well as information about the episode. Further investigate the ubiquity of simple recipe ingredients and products by clicking on words listed under “Similar Recipes.”
Younger readers not yet familiar with this inspirational icon of inventiveness (and older readers who are nostalgic) can find all seven seasons streaming on Netflix Instant…
[TotH to Flowing Data]
As we resolve to Be Prepared, we might recall that it was on this date in 1987 that U.S. Patent No. 4,666,425 for keeping a severed (human) head alive (“DEVICE FOR PERFUSING AN ANIMAL HEAD“) was issued to “Chet Fleming.” “Fleming” was the pseudonym of engineer and patent attorney Patrick Kelly, who believed that the patent might allow him to block– or at least to slow– research in this area (which, as he describes in his book If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive …, he saw as ethically dangerous). Sadly for Kelly’s cause, the patent was subsequently invalidated.
The Sound of Silage…
click on the bar above, or here
Can readers identify these “bellowing bedfellows“?
More aural amusement at Sounds Like Science, a project of NYU’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program. And for more, visit the British Library’s Listen to Nature.
As we rethink our concept of “cute,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1896 that Clement Hardy was issued a U.S. patent for the rotary disk plow (No. 556,972). The plow disks were designed to be drawn into the earth by their own action and by the weight of the soil lifted by the disks and carried on their faces and have a cutting action on the bottom of the furrow instead of scraping– enabling much lighter (and more easily drawn) plows than had previously been necessary to force the disks into the soil and hold them to their work.
a modern version at work (source)
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