From USA Today:

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the decision for a unanimous court. "Myriad did not create anything," Thomas said. "To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention."

Wow.

So the Court is distinguishing between true creation and simply taking something found and patenting it. This could be the decision heard 'round the world in intellectual property.

re: spider. Pics or it didn't happen.

Dominic, nothing on that tremendous 3OT Stanley Cup final game? Or Megan will have a post presumably.

@3) You are writing in tongues.

I haven't read the article, but the heart of the 'stand your ground' defense pretty much requires that you shoot to kill. A warning shot implies, in the eyes of the law, that you weren't truly in mortal danger from the assailant.

Which is stoopid.

@ 3, that was a motherfucking hockey game.

@4, not enough caffeine.

@6, god damn that was a game. Now if reports that Hansen is working on getting an NBA expansion are true, we can eventually have a few motherfuckers like last night in our back yard.

Waiting for someone from Australia to post a pic of a truly huge spider....

I don't want an Apple phablet. There's only room for one thing 5.7" or larger in my pants.

@8) Please, no, Urgutha. I saw a guy on Grindr recently with a tarantula on his head, and I blocked him before I even knew what was happening.

If anyone is looking for Walshe's article to prove her thesis that this is a gender issue, don't bother. She merely states it is a gender issue with no evidence or explanation.

#5 is right: this is not a gender issue, it is an issue of poorly written and poorly interpreted law. Because if she had shot and killed him...she probably would have been protected by the law, as batshit crazy as that sounds.

The search has been suspended for a naked woman who disappeared after going on a "spiritual quest" in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. Maybe she was raptured?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/search-suspende…

"Taking over television stations will reportedly help Gannett make up the ground it's losing in the publishing business."

Just moving from a dying industry to one which is not yet showing the symptoms but is just as fatally infected by the Internet.

I thought by now phones would have folded screens.

The woman referred to in the stand-your-ground article was convicted by a jury for, during a fight with her husband, getting her gun from the garage, going back into the house, and firing a shot that she claimed was a warning shot but the prosecution argued was aimed at the husband. Evidently the jury did not believe her.

Btw, Washington State is a stand-your ground state. Not by statute, but by common law. Washington calls it "no duty to retreat," and it is part of the standard self-defense instruction given to juries. I'd be interested to know how many other states have a stand-your-ground doctrine despite not having passed a stand-your-ground law. These laws are not as radical as people claim.

@10 - Now he might never know there was a spider on his head. That was very inconsiderate of you.

Yeah, but the SCOTUS said that cDNA is patentable. It's just DNA made directly from mRNA; that is, it's a cellular gene that's been "edited" by transcription machinery. The cDNA strands themselves are synthetic, sure, but the information is not by any stretch of the imagination.

@18: Well played.

doom @ 16

Usually when applicants apply for a gene patent, they present claims to 1) the isolated genomic DNA, 2) the single-stranded DNA, 3) new synthetic mutants as well as 4) the cDNA. So there will probably be just as many applications for gene patents, it's just that the claims will be greatly reduced in number.*
A single gene's worth of DNA, isolated from the cell and also isolated from the rest of the chromosome, is clearly NOT found in nature. But, what are you going to do?
@20, I'm sure you know this, but the "information" isn't patented, only the chemical compound.

In case it's not obvious, I disagree with this ruling. (The fact that my job depends on it does not make me biased, I swear). The work required to isolate a gene is at least as great as when many other chemical compounds are extracted from nature-compounds which ARE patent eligible. Like: novel enzymes, other proteins, heterocyclics (small ringed molecules), carbohydrates, chemotherapeutics, drugs, and many other things... to infinity.

*Theoretically, a cDNA patent can be infringed upon now by taking the information in the cDNA patent (that someone worked hard for, remember?) and using it to isolate the gene. What good is a cDNA patent if you can't protect the gene? Dumb.