links for 2010-11-01

"Reversing a longstanding policy, the federal government said on Friday that human and other genes should not be eligible for patents because they are part of nature. The new position could have a huge impact on medicine and on the biotechnology industry."

Brilliant.

"Increasing amounts of vegetation could be causing up to 60% of a slowing in wind speed across the Northern Hemisphere"

Heh, as we make the world more green, we may be causing wind speed to go down. Other side effects include the increase in wild animals in suburban areas.

"But synthetic DNA standards offer little protection, critics say."

Movers and shakers to meet.

"Ten years ago, two fingers were enough to count the number of sequenced human genomes. Until last year, the fingers on two hands were enough. Today, the rate of such sequencing is escalating so fast it is hard to keep track. Nature attempted nevertheless: we asked more than 90 genomics centres and labs to estimate the number of human genome sequences they have in the works. Although far from comprehensive, the tally indicates that at least 2,700 human genomes will have been completed by the end of this month, and that the total will rise to more than 30,000 by the end of 2011."