For folks that don’t know, Venter had a company, Celera, they competed with the Human Genome Project (HGP) run by the US Gov’t. They developed interesting techniques to sequence, I believe they are credited with shotgun sequencing.
How were they able to compete?? The HGP published all their work openly, Venter and co used the freely accessible data alongside their own proprietary methods to try and sequence the human genome first themselves.
If I recall correctly it was considered a tie and they both jointly published the first sequenced human genome in Science.
yeah, from what i remember, they pioneered a form of it called double-barrel shotgun sequencing, where both ends of the sequenced DNA fragment are analyzed for overlap instead of just one.
Surely there has to be a cost to the infrastructure of publishing and curation though. And possibly all the work of setting up and organizing the peer review process. So they probably charge the institutions or authors submitting the paper instead of their readers. But perhaps we should treat scientific journals as a public good, like libraries, or at least have a publicly funded option. Or have universities and institutions fund it for the public good.
But it’s mostly a scam. The costs don’t remotely compare to the revenue. Reviewers time is not paid, and there’s a price to both publish and access. It’s all about the prestige to publish. If you contact the author directly they’ll typically gladly send you the article for free.
Oh absolutely. I agree. I don’t think anyone’s disputing that something about it needs to change. Even given that things cost money to run, for profit journals that can basically act as gatekeepers means there’s also going to be excessive price gouging and profiteering and that needs to change.
The issue is partly that, over time, private entities are going to price gouge or take similar measures (see: “enshittification”) in order to keep growing as profit falls over time. That’s just how the profit motive works, it eventually optimizes everything for profit, not just what you are comfortable with having turned into a vehicle aimed solely at making money.
So yes, this and many other important things should be treated as public goods.
Not to mention that system started about four centuries ago, long before the Internet was invented. I’d assume that back then, the costs and effort of operating a journal really did justify the prices they charged.
Nestlé has been patenting human milk proteins for decades. To my understanding, this prevents other companies to add such molecules to baby formula, even if somehow methods to synthesize said molecules were developed.
That is a scary notion, a malevolous intent and a gross outcome.
“Excuse me madam but do you have a license to use those tits? No? Didn’t think so. The content of those bazongas is Nestle property. I’m afraid I’m going to have to clamp those nipples until such time as the proper Bandonkadonk subscriptions are paid”
i got this new legal drama plot. basically there’s this patent infringer except she’s got huge boobs. i mean some serious honkers. a real set of badonkers. packin some dobonhonkeros. massive dohoonkabhankoloos. big ol’ tonhongerekoogers.
what happens next?!
lawyer shows up with even bigger bonkhonagahoogs. humongous hungolomghononoloughongous
As long as the tits aren’t used for commercial purposes you don’t need a license. Anyway, I doubt that in Europe you could patent any naturally occuring molecules in any kind of milk.
Maybe some countries’ patent offices don’t take their job serious, but in general there are loads of things you can patent. For example basically anything naturally occuring is not generally patentable, but you can patent methods for synthesising or extracting naturally occuring things.
Imagine Nestle executives finding a time machine and going to all of history’s most famous persons’ mothers and telling them how they can’t breastfeed their kids.
Paywalled articles are still openly available if you politely email the researcher. While we should strive to have no barrier, if you can’t afford to publish openly those who need the research can still acquire it under the table. Having research unpublished because the researchers could not afford to pay the fee is worse than having the research published in a closed journal.
I’ve gotten a few dozen papers from closed journals that way, and I’ve never been told no.
Also, if you are starting your career, it’s ridiculous to ask you to pay for open access. At least in the third world, you can barely eat with your money.
I’ve never considered that since I’m in cybersecurity, so the oldest paper I’ve seen that is from the late 80s. The majority is from the mid 90s onwards though, and due to the fast moving nature of the field anything that is old enough to have a dead author is likely out of date.
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