Intellectual Property Law

IUCN Red List Update

Posted on November 04, 2009
IUCN has released its annual update to the Red List. Of the nearly 50,000 species surveyed, close to 20,000 are threatened. In other words, more than 1/3 of the species evaluated by IUCN are vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.It is high time that biodiversity loss receive at least the level of international attention that has recently been paid to climate change...

A Broad Challenge to the FDA's Regulations: Botox Manufacturer Sues Asserting First Amendment Protection for Off Label Drug Claims

Posted on October 10, 2009
In a move that could undermine the FDA's premarket approval process for all health care products, the maker of Botox has filed a legal action against the government claiming first amendment protection for the distribution of ?truthful, relevant information? to doctors regarding off-label uses of its drugs...

Part Three: The Relationship Between the Level of Regulation under the FDCA and the Health Status of a Product?s Targeted Population

Posted on September 28, 2009
An Introduction to the History of Quack Medicine In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries there was a remarkable growth in the marketing of sham products to treat and cure disease. At that time, the rate at which quack medicines were being introduced into the market far outpaced the development of the science necessary to establish the efficacy and identify the risks associated with each new product...

Advancing Biodiversity Protection in International Negotiations

Posted on September 21, 2009
What is the most important opportunity for advancing biodiversity protection in the near term? Given the uneven distribution of species throughout the globe, and the rapid destruction of habitat in many developing countries, the appropriate scale is global with local and regional implimentation...

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Post Two of a Series: The Relationship Between the Level of Regulation under the FDCA and the Health Status of a Product?s Targeted Population

Posted on September 21, 2009
The first post of this series began an examination of the relationship between the health status of a product?s targeted population and the level of regulation under the FDCA. The question was asked whether functional foods should be regulated as drugs if they claim to treat abnormal health conditions...

Post 1 in Series: The Relationship Between the Level of Government Regulation under the FDCA and the Health Status of a Product?s Targeted Population

Posted on September 15, 2009
Cheerios -- a Drug?This past May, the FDA issued a warning letter to General Mills stating that the claim on Cheerios cereal that ?you can Lower Your Cholesterol 4% in 6 weeks? turned the Cheerios from a food into an illegally marketed drug. When bloggers heard the news, posts ran from scolding the FDA to ?grow-up,? to those which lauded the FDA?s action...

The rhetorical orgin of Sarah Palin's "death panel"

Posted on August 10, 2009
Despite her July 26, 2009, resignation as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin remains a formidable political force. She has shifted her primary written platform from Twitter to Facebook.Sarah Palin's Facebook page has had an immediate and profound impact on national politics...

In other logging news . . .

Posted on July 19, 2009
After my post on the WOPR withdrawal, I came across this much less publicized news item on administration logging decisions. On the same day as the WOPR withdrawal, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsak approved a 381 acre clear-cut of primary forest (the Orion North timber sale) in a roadless area of the Tongass National Forest in Thorn Arm, near Ketchikan...

Assiting Migration of Trees in the Northwest

Posted on July 19, 2009
Associated Press reports on a large-scale Canadian project to plant 16 tree species in areas that may be more suitable to them as climate change. The project involves several planting sites in British Columbia and the Northwestern United States. Geneticist Gregg O'Neill, who heads the project, notes the need to plant trees that can thrive over the next 80 years while the climate changes...

Withdrawing the WOPR

Posted on July 16, 2009
Interior Secretary Salazar withdrew the Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR) today. The Department of Interior news release begins: "Because the previous Administration failed to follow established administrative procedure before leaving office, its plan to intensify logging in western Oregon ? known as the Western Oregon Plan Revisions (WOPR) ? is legally indefensible and must be withdrawn...

Law And Neuroscience In Italy

Posted on July 07, 2009
The European Science Foundation will be holding a fascinating research conference on law and neuroscience this fall. The conference is entitled "LAW AND NEUROSCIENCE: OUR GROWING UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BRAIN AND ITS IMPACT ON OUR LEGAL SYSTEM", and its aim isto establish a dialogue between neuroscientists, legal practitioners, researchers in sociolegal studies and social scientists, to further mutual understanding and make some realistic evaluations of the potential developments at the intersection of neuroscience and law...

Interesting New Book on the Transatlantic GMO Divide

Posted on May 27, 2009
Oxford University Press just published an interesting new book: When Cooperation Fails: The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods by Gregory Schaffer and Mark Pollack. I will review the book after I have read it. For now, I will just whet your appetite with OUP's description of the book: The transatlantic dispute over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has brought into conflict the United States and the European Union, two long-time allies and economically interdependent democracies with a long record of successful cooperation...

Mighty Sweet

Posted on May 14, 2009
There are many things that make life worth living, but two of the greatest have to be time outdoors working with nature (such as gardening) and time with one's children. The two of these intersect for me everytime my kids help me plant, maintain or harvest a garden -- a great way to build their familiarity and comfort with the outdoors, and to teach them about where food comes from...

Continued Life for the ESA

Posted on May 14, 2009
I share Andrew Torrence's concern that climate change may be taking priority over biodiversity conservation. (However, as I've expressed previously, I think the attention garnered by climate change can be harnessed to more effectively address some of the most challenging and critical issues of biodiversity conservation)...

The Day The Endangered Species Act Died

Posted on May 08, 2009
The Obama Administration announced today, through Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, that it would not break with the Bush II Administration's policy of abandoning the Polar Bear to its fate. Despite both the clear intent and letter of the Endangered Species Act to contrary, Secretary Salazar stated that "The Endangered Species Act is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue, and that is the issue of global warming"...

Sustainably Cloned Cows

Posted on March 29, 2009
I don't get it. When I saw the ad in which Cyclone Dairy touting its milk from cloned cows, I naturally clicked through to the website. I expected either a clever parody, ala The Onion, or an anti-GMO rant in cow's clothing. I was very disappointed.If the site aspires to parody or rant, it fails on both counts...

Perpetuating science illiteracy

Posted on March 22, 2009
Now that my own family has solidly entered the world of coloring books and dinosaur p.j.s, this particular combination of dinosaurs and coloring books struck a raw nerve. I am not convinced it is real (seems too absurd, even for young earthers) but the image and text certainly capture the level of science illiteracy fostered by evolution denial...

Better REDD than Dead: Biodiversity in the Climate Regime

Posted on March 13, 2009
What is the best opportunity to secure effective international legal protection for biodiversity in the near term? It does not currently seem to be proceedings under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Nor is it likely to lie under international efforts aimed exclusively at habitat protection, such as the UN Forum on Forests...

Endangered Species Act: Consultation Rules Restored

Posted on March 03, 2009

Darwin's beautiful mind, still not fully appreciated

Posted on February 09, 2009
George Richmond, Charles Darwin (1840)Nicholas Wade's reflections on Charles Darwin upon the bicentennial of his birth and the sesquicentennial of The Origin of Species resonate strongly. It is often said that progress in a science is measured by the speed with which its founders are forgotten...

Darwin Or Lose?

Posted on February 06, 2009
Although it may be illegal to teach creationism (whether or not covertly repackaged under names like "intelligent design") as science in public schools in the United States, it appears that most Americans still doubt the truth of Darwin's theory of evolution...

Zealous Advocacy For Biodiversity

Posted on January 17, 2009
On our final day, the highlight was meeting with local attorney, Jeff Weiss, who opened the class' eyes to the challenges, complications, and successes of litigating on behalf of biodiversity. My class describes our discussion:After lecture this morning, we went to Estate Nazareth to speak with Jeff Weiss, a well-respected attorney popularly known as the ?Bulldog? for his tenacity...

Humpback Whalesongs

Posted on January 17, 2009
Steve Prosterman, who runs the diving program at the University of the Virgin Islands, escorted us out into the wide Caribbean Sea, where he showed us fabulous endangered Elkhorn and Staghorn Coral, and introduced us to the haunting calls of the Humpback Whale...

Donkeys, Mongeese, And Rats, Oh My!

Posted on January 17, 2009
The class woke up early this morning, jumped in the Deep Thinker (a fast catamaran), and headed across the Virgin Islands Channel to the British Virgin Islands. As the students explain,We started the day with a trip to the British Virgin Islands ("BVI") to meet up with Susan Zaluski, who directs the recently-founded Jost Van Dyke Preservation Society...

Saving Rainforest On Saint John

Posted on January 14, 2009
Day three of Biodiversity Law began early, checking a live-trapline for Cuban Tree Frogs. Then, we popped over to the island of Saint John to see a huge newly-preserved swatch of rainforest near Maho Bay. The students explain:We woke up extra early today to meet Renata Platenberg at the top of the trailhead at Magen's Bay to hike down to Magen's Bay Beach...

Coral Reef Law 101

Posted on January 14, 2009
The second day of Biodiversity Law centered on a day-long visit to Botany Bay, one of the last large tracts of (mostly) undeveloped land on Saint Thomas. The students report:First we went to the Botany Bay Estates, a large parcel of privately-owned land closed to the public...

First Day In Paradise

Posted on January 12, 2009
KU Law School's Biodiversity Law class arrived in the Virgin Islands late last night. The first day of the fieldtrip was a revelation to the students. Here is their first nightly eyewitness report:We awoke to a breathtaking view of Saint Thomas and the Caribbean Sea, probably one of the most spectacular views in the Virgin Islands...

A Definition Of Biolaw

Posted on January 09, 2009
In an attempt to have "Biolaw" officially recognized as a "Section" by the American Association of Law Schools ("AALS"), June Carbone, Chris Holman, and I circulated a petition yesterday at the AALS Annual Meetings, in San Diego, to collect signatures in support of a Biolaw Section...

Outrageous advice for female lawyers

Posted on January 07, 2009
I posted earlier about this on Intlawgrrls, but am so offended that I felt the need to repost here. I am amazed that this story has gotten so little coverage. where is the outrage? According to the Daily Mail, and Marie Claire, the law firm of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has been advising its female associates to "embrace their femininity" by wearing stilettos and skirts to work...

AALS Biolaw Section

Posted on January 06, 2009
I thought I would share with the wider Biolaw community an initiative that several of us are taking at the American Association of Law Schools ("AALS"): to have "Biolaw" officially recognized as a "Section", like Intellectual Property and Cyberlaw. Here is the e-mail invitation we sent law professors attending the annual AALS meetings in San Diego:Biolaw Folks,June Carbone, Chris Holman, and I have organized a "Biolaw" panel at this year's annual AALS meetings that we hope you will all attend...

NPR - The New Frontier Of Biolaw

Posted on December 09, 2008
Award-winning NPR health journalist, Bryan Thompson, attended the first day of Biolaw 2.0: Law at the Frontiers of Biology, the second annual Biolaw Conference, held last month at the University of Kansas School of Law. Among others, Biolaw contributors Jim Chen, Rebecca Bratspies, and I spoke...

The Proposed ESA Consultation Regulations

Posted on November 25, 2008
In August, the Fish & Wildlife Service, along with the National Marine Fisheries Service ("the Services"), proposed a rule amending the Endangered Species Act consultation regulations. As one of several proposed changes to environmental regulations before the end of the Bush administration, this proposed rule seeks to redefine the circumstances in which federal agencies must consult with the Services to determine whether a proposed federal agency action would jeopardize threatened or endangered species...

Winter v NRDC

Posted on November 17, 2008
Without digging too deeply into this case, here are a few thoughts:Why does the Court take a case like this? The case concerns, at its base, the issue whether the Navy must complete an environmental impact statement under NEPA before undertaking certain training exercises...

Biolaw 2.0 Conference - Law at the Frontiers of Biology

Posted on November 04, 2008
On November 13th and 14th, 2008, Biolaw 2.0 - Law at the Frontiers of Biology will take place at the University of Kansas School of Law. As the 2.0 suggests, this is the second annual Biolaw Conference. The Biolaw Conference website can be found here...

Stimulate Green Energy

Posted on October 19, 2008
"[W]hen we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases," writes Michael Pollen in the lead article of the New York Times' food issue. Rising food prices, he argues, cannot be addressed until we address core features of our food production...

Strobe Lights The Way

Posted on October 15, 2008
Last night I attended the 2008 International Relations Council annual awards banquet in Kansas City. Strobe Talbot received the award for international statesmanship. He then went on to deliver a speech that began with Socrates' concept of world citizenship and ended with global climate change...

A free hiking guide

Posted on October 13, 2008
Yes, this is an advertisement for a one-year subscription to Backpacker magazine. But it comes with a nice, free offer: a 48-page .pdf file providing nice information on some of the country's best hiking opportunities.Happy trails to BioLaw's readers.

Candidates on the ESA: Obama

Posted on October 03, 2008
There are several recent comparisons of the candidates on environmental issues. For example, Michael Gerrard authored a recent ABA Natural Resources & Environment piece on the presidential candidates' stance on environmental issues. The online environmental news magazine Grist has a comparison of their farm & food policies...

Candidates on the ESA: McCain

Posted on September 19, 2008
We have been hearing constantly updated versions of the presidential candidates' positions on the economy, but what are their positions on ecosystems and the species that depend on them?John McCain stood out among Republican primary candidates for the simple assertion that he believes in evolution, but how far does that understanding take him toward preservation of species? As portrayed in a recent High Country News article, McCain's early career in the Senate included some striking support of environmental goals -- such as protection of more than 200 million acres of Arizona wilderness...

one more reason to worry

Posted on September 10, 2008
It amazes me that recent news about the accelerating melting of arctic ice doesn't seem to be causing nearly the public uproar one might expect. Well, here is a new wakeup call. A melting arctic might not only raise sea level, change global climate patterns, and doom vast swaths of flora and fauna...

Beyond The Palin

Posted on September 01, 2008
John McCain has distinguished himself from many Republicans, and a good many Democrats, by adopting a number of political positions grounded more in science than in popularity. Among these are his early recognition that global climate change is most likely anthropogenic in origin, his opposition to oil drilling in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ("ANWR"), and his support for evolution and embryonic stem cell ("ESC") research...

VICTORY: EPA to Reopen Libraries

Posted on July 31, 2008
After much sturm and drang, including a scathing GAO report, withering criticism from Congress, the public (including yours truly) and objections from its own employees, EPA recently inked an MOA with the American Federation of Government Employees to reopen all the libraries EPA shuttered in 2006...

A Crash Course in Intellectual Property

Posted on July 27, 2008
In my professional life, I deal with intellectual property questions on a routine basis. As a property professor, and a biolaw scholar, patent (and sometimes copyright) issues are my bread and butter. But, recent events in my life have reminded me just how much there is that I don't know...

Affymetrix's Wings Gets SNPed

Posted on July 23, 2008
Sometimes a single nucleotide variant among the thousands that make up a typical gene can indicate significant abnormality in a patient. These needles in genomic haystacks, called "Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms", or "SNPs", can be not only medically useful, but quite lucrative to medical diagnostic companies as well...

Farmed Atlantic Salmon Escaping into the Pacific Northwest

Posted on July 09, 2008
Last week as many as 30,000 Atlantic salmon escaped from an aquaculture operation off the coast of British Columbia. This escape is among the largest in recent years and the likelihood of re-capturing more than 10% is low.Escapes from open-net cage salmon farms are not uncommon...

Macfie, McCain, and McPrizes

Posted on June 27, 2008
In late 19th Century Britain, a British Member of Parliament, Robert Macfie, vigorously advocated awarding governmental cash prizes to inventors whose inventions proved useful, and pressed for such a reward system to replace patents. Patents are usually justified on the grounds that they promote technological innovation...

The case for banana sex

Posted on June 20, 2008
The commercial banana is a sterile mutant that hasn't had sex for decades. Visit Jurisdynamics to read the compelling case for banana sex.

Biotechnology Goes Underground

Posted on June 20, 2008
Although advocates of comprehensive reform to the United States Patent Act have so far failed to shepherd any of their bills into statute, the next Congress is sure to take up the baton again. After all, the 2007 proposals actually passed the House before dying in the Senate...

Biotechnology's Unsettled Forecast

Posted on June 20, 2008
The global biotechnology industry came within a whisker of profitability in 2007. In the 35 years since Boyer and Cohen first produced recombinant DNA, the industry as a whole has suffered staggering losses. That may change in 2008, a cause for cheer among the more than 20 000 biotechnology aficionados attending this year's BIO International Conference...

Social Contract On Drugs

Posted on June 19, 2008
Each year at BIO, Ernst & Young offer a numerically intensive update of the biotechnology industry, rich in charts, tables, graphs, pie charts, and Venn diagrams. However, this year's update managed several moments of philosophy as well. The most interesting involved several panel members discussing the "social contract" between the public and the bio/pharmaceutical industry...

Reporting From BIO 2008

Posted on June 17, 2008
BioLaw will be reporting live all week from the Biotechnology Industry Organization International Conference ("BIO 2008") in San Diego. BioLaw wishes to thank BIO 2008 for granting it official press status, and for providing excellent facilities in the Press Room...

Exhaustion Reinvigorated

Posted on June 09, 2008
Quanta Computer, Inc. ("Quanta"), has two reasons to celebrate today. First, the new G3 iPhones that it builds for Apple have gone public. Second, the United States Supreme Court finally released its decision in Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc...

Supreme Court decides Quanta

Posted on June 09, 2008
The Supreme Court just handed down its decision in Quanta Computer Inc. v. LG Electronics Inc., 06-937. The Court ruled 9-0 in favor of Quanta ruling that method patents are subject to exhaustion, and that the patents had been exhausted in this case. The opinion is here...

The greatest story ever told

Posted on June 06, 2008
Hear the rhapsody in cyan that cyanobacteria composed in bridging the Archaean and Proterozoic eons of geologic history. By "poisoning" the ancient earth's atmosphere through photosynthesis, cyanobacteria converted the reducing atmosphere of the Archaean into the aerobic atmosphere that has prevailed ever since and has supported a wide range of oxygen-loving (or at least oxygen-tolerant) organisms...

Biolaw Conference 2.0 (November 13-14, 2008)

Posted on June 06, 2008
The second annual Biolaw Conference 2.0 will be held on November 13th and 14th, 2008, at the University of Kansas School of Law. Biolaw 2.0 is being organized by the Kansas Journal of Law and Public Policy, and invited articles spanning the range of biolaw topics will be published in a special volume of the Journal...

New Front on the Evolution Wars

Posted on June 04, 2008
The phrase seems innocuous enough: "strengths and weaknesses." In fact those three words are the latest salvo of those who were previously thwarted from forcing their personal religious beliefs on unsuspecting science students by court decisions rejecting creationism, creation "science" and "intelligent" design...

Patently Immoral Genes

Posted on June 02, 2008
It is not uncommon for patent attorneys in the United States to console themselves, especially when suffering from the stress of long workdays and endless due dates, deadlines, and statutory bars, that at least their branch of legal practice avoids the minefields of morality...

Dealing with the Polar Bear

Posted on June 01, 2008
There has been a lot of hoopla and controversy focused on the Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) recent listing of the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The FWS is taking flak from all sides. Alaska, Canada, and many US industries argue that the agency used insufficient science to designate the bear as threatened, and that the listing will bring doom and gloom to our economies...

Cloning Around In Japan

Posted on May 30, 2008
Nature reports that Japan may soon authorize experimental human embryonic cloning. This would overturn a 2001 Japanese ban on such research. Human cloning will have to adhere to "rigorous ethical regulations", and human reproductive cloning will still be banned...

Remember the quagga

Posted on May 28, 2008
Olivia Judson, Musings inspired by a quagga, The New York Times: The Wild Side blog (May 27, 2008)The hall is hushed, like a church. No one else is here. The only sound is the clicking of the heels of my shoes. I walk up and down, looking at the animals...

The Double Helix

Posted on May 19, 2008
James Watson's memoir, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA (1st ed. 1969; reprint 2001), has been described by Sylvia Nasar as "unique in the annals of science writing." The Double Helix describes a "discovery ...

More on the Polar Bear Listing

Posted on May 16, 2008
Along with the decision to list polar bears (noted here, history here), DOI issued a 4(d) rule. Secretary Dirk Kempthorne?s comments announcing the listing decision also lay out its limits: it will ?not open the door to use the ESA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, power plants, and other sources? and the 4(d) rule ?will ensure the protection of the bear while allowing us to continue to develop our natural resources in the arctic region in an environmentally sound way...

Trouble in bear country

Posted on May 14, 2008
As rising temperatures change life on a global scale, we should not be surprised that Ursus maritimus, the eponymous bear of the far north, has now come under the aegis of the Endangered Species Act.Threatened

Ovarian Cancer Awareness

Posted on May 10, 2008
Among women in the United States, ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer, and fifth most common cause of cancer deaths. Although, far less common than breast, colon or prostate cancer, but ovarian cancer has a much higher death rate. Why? Because there is no screening test, and most women experience few symptoms until they have advanced stages of the disease...

The platypus genome

Posted on May 08, 2008
The platypus genome has been sequenced. Some of the cooler details:Sex determination. It has been known that platypuses have not one but five (!) pairs of sex chromosomes. Male platypuses exhibit an XYXYXYXYXY genotype. And those sex chromosomes bear some connection to the ZW sex determination system found in birds...

Symmetrical and sexy

Posted on May 07, 2008
Herewith a neat article, courtesy of the literature-scouring tool called The Scientific Lawyer and its systematic scouring of Science Daily:Anthony C. Little, Symmetry Is Related to Sexual Dimorphism in Faces: Data Across Culture and Species, PLoS ONE 3(5): e2106...

Rhapsodizing further on insects

Posted on May 06, 2008
Elaborating further on Rhapsody in iridescent blue: A quartet from "The Theater of Insects," in this weblog network's preferred variation on the theme of synesthesia:I. The Theater of Insects RevisitedImages from Jo Whaley, The Theater of Insects, © 2000-2007...

A regulatory train wreck

Posted on May 02, 2008
Polar bears face an increasingly uncertain future. (photo credit)The ProblemGlobal warming is changing the arctic ? reducing the coverage and availability of the ice on which polar bears depend. Richard Steiner, a marine biology professor at the University of Alaska, puts it a little more bluntly: For anyone who has wondered how global warming and reduced sea ice will affect polar bears, the answer is simple ? they die...

Rhapsody in iridescent blue: A quartet from "The Theater of Insects"

Posted on May 01, 2008
Images from Jo Whaley, The Theater of Insects, © 2007. Top — 47: Doxocopa cherubina and 8: Papilio ulysses. Bottom — 60: Anaea cyanae and 102: Morpho deidamia.From the introductory essay accompanying Jo Whaley's forthcoming book, The Theater of Insects (2008):Like moths attracted to the light of a flame only to perish in that flight, I wonder if we, too, are tied to self-destruction through a drive toward greater technological heights...

A predictable catastrophe

Posted on April 28, 2008
Today's Washington Post has an article on how the global food crisis is impacting Mauritania. Yesterday, I blogged about this topic on Intlawgrrls, here. The human scale of this tragedy can get buried under statistics about biofuel, farm animal production and global trade...

Dr. Lovejoy on Climate Change & Biodiversity

Posted on April 26, 2008
Last week, I added a brief blog post on my research into climate change and biodiversity, emphasizing forest preservation. This evening, I bumped into a video of Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy discussing similar issues a couple of years ago. Dr. Lovejoy has long been among the most important scientific voices on biodiversity and he has focused on the impact of climate change in recent years...

Toxic inaction, in humans and their pets

Posted on April 23, 2008
Mark Schapiro, Toxic InactionGreenpeace U.K. released a study in 2005 that found numerous toxic chemicals in the umbilical-cord blood of European infants. That same year, World Wildlife Fund International tested the blood of three generations of women from 12 European countries...

earth day thoughts

Posted on April 22, 2008
This is the Ganges River basin (photo by NASA). Isn't it beautiful? More satelite images of the earth can be found here.When the President of the United States pitches halting the increase in greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 as a "rational and balanced approach," let alone as a national commitment to sustainability, it is worth taking a moment to remind ourselves what a beautiful and yet fragile planet we call home...

Exploitation and Gardening

Posted on April 21, 2008
Paul Krugman has an op-ed piece in the NY Times called ?Running Out of Planet to Exploit.? The basic thrust is to question whether rising oil and food prices are a sign that the human population is hitting the proverbial brick wall in terms of resource exploitation...

Pharyngula, we are here

Posted on April 14, 2008
PZ Myers of Pharyngula has asked bloggers everywhere to help build a Google bomb that promotes the National Center for Science Education's website, Expelled Exposed. The project consists of embedding the word Expelled inside a matched pair of <a> and </a> tags...

Biodiversity & Climate Change

Posted on April 14, 2008
Last week I gave a presentation on biodiversity & climate change for the faculty workshop series here at the University of Louisville School of Law that I thought may be of interest to some Biolaw readers. Biodiversity loss is a much more insidious threat than climate change, underappreciated by the public and many policymakers...

Dendrobium: Family Orchidaceae's tree of life

Posted on April 11, 2008
I.V. Passmoore, Dendrobium Orchid (n.d.)Dendrobium refers to a large genus of tropical orchids comprising roughly 1200 species. The term dendrobium combines the Greek words ?????? (tree) and ???? (life). These orchids range throughout much of southern and eastern Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand...

The Most Challenging Audience: The Public

Posted on April 09, 2008
Tomorrow evening I will deliver a lecture in The University Lecture Series on Global Climate Change at the University of Kansas. My talk - "Climate Change and the Changing Legal Climate" - will focus on the awkward, and sometimes openly hostile, interaction between law and science in guiding climate change policy...

Biolaw: Law at the Frontiers of Biology

Posted on April 04, 2008
Interface and Pain, watercolors by Sharon BurgmayerHerewith the video proceedings of the Kansas Law Review's symposium, Biolaw: Law at the Frontiers of Biology (November 9, 2007), to be published in volume 55, issue 4 of the Review.Read the rest of this post ...

National Autism Day

Posted on April 01, 2008
April 2 is national autism day. Since a young cousin of mine was just diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, I am paying more attention to the day than usual.Austism, and its spectrum of related disorders, are confusing and difficult to understand. The array of developmental syndromes known as autism spectrum disorders range from severe disability and cognitive impairment to the socially awkward eccentric with Asperger's syndrome...

Biolaw: Cracking the Code

Posted on April 01, 2008
Biolaw: Cracking the CodeThe neologism biolaw describes all areas of law informed by the life sciences. Health law, bioethics, environmental law, natural resources law, agricultural law, food and drug law, biotechnology, law and neuroscience, law and behavioral psychology, and evolutionary analysis of law all share a common scientific core...

Governance & Forest Conservation

Posted on March 31, 2008
In light of the potential for REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) credits to enter the post-2012 climate regime, it is important to remember that officially-sanctioned forest activities are only a portion of the problem. Governmental and nongovernmental assessments estimate that illegal logging accounts for over half of timber extracted from the tropical forests of some major timber-producing nations...

Creationism at Mall of the Americas

Posted on March 22, 2008
According to the NYT, there was a screening of the new creationist film Expelled (oh, excuse me . . . "intelligent" design) at the Mall of the Americas. Apparently, the film's producer refused to let Professor P. Z. Myers in to the screening, though Richard Dawkins somehow made the cut...

The Encyclopedia Of Life Adds Pages

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Encyclopedia Of Life ("EOL") has a lofty goal: to collect every bit of information about every type of organism together in a single, user-friendly website. The last time Biolaw discussed the EOL ("Writing The Book Of Life", May 22, 2007), the website was a great idea, but lacked any substantial content...

Patrick S. O'Donnell's bibliographies on bioethics and on environmental and ecological worldviews

Posted on March 15, 2008
I am pleased to announce that Patrick S. O'Donnell, one of the smartest readers and commentators in the legal blogosphere, is now blogging at Ratio Juris. Patrick's first contribution includes links to two of his remarkably thorough reading lists, one on bioethics and the other on environmental and ecological worldviews, and a description of his storehouse of bibliographies...

Ehrlich-Simon Bet Update

Posted on March 11, 2008
The issue of whether natural resources and environmental amenities are depleted or improved over time is vital to the making of sound policy and law. In 1980 three prominent Bay Area academics (Stanford's Paul Ehrlich and Berkeley's Johns Harte and Holdren) bet business economist Julian Simon that the real (inflation-adjusted) price of five commodity metals (that is, chromium, copper, tungsten, tin, and nickel) would rise by the year 1990...

Bad science, shrewd politics?

Posted on March 04, 2008
It?s indisputable that autism is on the rise among children. The question is, What?s causing it? And we go back and forth, and there?s strong evidence that indicates that it?s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.— Senator John McCainAnd with that pronouncement, Senator John McCain touched one of the most politically controversial questions in modern medicine...

In plain sight: Simple rules for complex camouflage

Posted on February 19, 2008
To the most faithful readers of Jurisdynamics and BioLaw, I owe a small apology. The "life-dinner principle" outlined in Richard Dawkins & John R. Krebs, Arms Races Between and Within Species, 205:1161 Proc. Royal Soc'y London: Series B, Biol. Scis. 489-511 (1979) — the observation that "a lineage under strong selection may out-evolve a weakly selected one" — is a bedrock tenet of evolutionary biology...

Happy Valentine's Day

Posted on February 14, 2008
Happy Valentine's Day from BioLaw.

Celebrate Evolution Sunday

Posted on February 04, 2008
Now that Super Bowl XLII is safely behind us, we can look forward to Evolution Sunday 2008. According to a report in The Scientist, 467 congregations planned their church services around Evolution Sunday in 2006, and 618 participated in 2007. This year's Evolution Sunday will take place February 10...

The daily mammal

Posted on January 26, 2008
The Daily Mammal expresses a dream of New Mexico-based artist Jennifer Rae Atkins "to [try to] draw [close to] every mammal on earth." Jennifer has set out a goal of drawing one mammal each day. "Since there are about 5,000 named mammal species, give or take, it should take [her] about 14 years to meet this goal...

Almost Alive

Posted on January 24, 2008
Dr. Craig Venter does not simply push the envelope of biology: he recreates it. His research group, The Institute for Genetic Research ("TIGR"), was first to sequence an entire genome, that of Haemophilus influenzae (the infectious eubacterium that causes influenza)...

Mercury and fish

Posted on January 24, 2008
The New York Times reported yesterday that tuna served in Manhattan restaurants as sushi contained unacceptably high levels of mercury. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can cause mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness, blindness and motor impairments...

Top Ten Insights Into Biodiversity Law

Posted on January 17, 2008
To conclude their guest contributions to BioLaw, my KU Biodiversity Law class has come up with a top ten list of insights into biodiversity law that they learned during the class in the Virgin Islands. In no particular order, here they are:(1) The greatest threats to biodiversity are habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, (over)population, and overexploitation...

From Virgin Islands To Experienced Biodiversity Law Students

Posted on January 15, 2008
As my KU Biodiversity Law class draws to an end, here is my students' last dispatch from those pearls of biodiversity, the Virgin Islands:We began our day at Botany Bay. A biologist discussed the progression of the development plans of the west side of Saint Thomas...

Bats, Snakes, And Legal Ladders

Posted on January 14, 2008
As my KU Biodiversity Law students enter the final stretch of the class, they learned an impressive amount about law and biological diversity today. Here is their report:Today was one of the longest but most interesting days we had. In the morning we traveled to the East side of the island to visit a biologist at the VI Department of Fish and Wildlife...

Critical Issues About Critical Habitat

Posted on January 13, 2008
Today my KU Biodiversity Law students explored environmental permitting and endangered species law. Here are their observations:This afternoon we focused on endangered species on Saint Thomas. After Hurricane Marilyn hit the island in 1995, 95% of structures on Saint Thomas were heavily damaged...

Biodiversity Law Across Drake's Passage

Posted on January 12, 2008
Here is the second in a series of daily observations about my KU Biodiversity Law class' experiences learning about biodiversity law in the Virgin Islands:Today we traveled to the British Virgin Islands (BVI) to explore Tortola and Jost Van Dyke. We discovered that the BVI contains much less development, and therefore a greater area of land and water available for biodiversity conservation, than do the United States Virgin Islands (USVI)...

Sustainability And Coral Reef Encounters

Posted on January 11, 2008
Starting today, my KU Biodiversity Law students will be offering their daily observations about their experiences learning about biodiversity law in the Virgin Islands. Here is their first installment:We started our morning by taking the ferry from St...

A Life Of Ease(ments)

Posted on January 10, 2008
For the second year in a row a group of KU Law School students have escaped chilly Lawrence, Kansas, for the ideal weather of the Virgin Islands, to take Biodiversity Law. The first two days of class have been extremely illuminating. Starting tomorrow one student per day will become a guest Biolaw blogger to share the new insights into biodiversity law gleaned from their activities in the VI...

Enforcing Forest Protection Laws in Mexico

Posted on December 12, 2007
Last week, Mexican police conducted the largest raid on illegal logging operations in the nation?s history. Raiding 19 sawmills, police arrested 56 people and seized roughly 6,600 tons of illegally harvested timber. The raids occurred around the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Central Mexico...

Cats versus birds

Posted on December 03, 2007
Jurisdynamics Network correspondent Dan Kowalski has directed my attention to this New York Times Magazine feature: Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird?:[There is a] strange Sylvester-and-Tweety feud between birders and cat fanciers . . . ...

Australia's New Environmental Rudder

Posted on November 30, 2007
For years, the United States has been able to dodge claims that it stood alone against the Kyoto Protocol. Even leaving aside developing countries with no legal obligations under Kyoto, the U.S. could point to its developed brother in nonratification arms: Australia...

FDA Hearings On Restricting Salt: Should Health Advocates' Demands for Government Restrictions On Salt Be Taken Cum Grano Salis?

Posted on November 29, 2007
The FDA held public hearings this week over the GRAS (generally regarded as safe) status of salt. The hearings are in response to health advocates who argue that salt should be treated as a food additive. This would allow the FDA to set limits on the amount of salt that could be added to foods...

Facilitating Species Migration: Adapting to Climate Change & Benefiting Biodiversity

Posted on November 27, 2007
IPCC's recently completed Fourth Assessment Report paints a grim picture of climate change impacts (the summary of the synthesis report is available here). IPCC Working Group II?s contribution estimates: ?on average 20% to 30% of species assessed are likely to be at increasingly high risk of extinction from climate change impacts possibly within this century as global mean temperatures exceed 2°C to 3°C relative to pre-industrial levels...

Will the FDA Bar The Door When Stem Cells Produced From Therapeutic Cloning Come Knocking?

Posted on November 26, 2007
Semos (named after the god in Planet of the Apes) is the rhesus monkey who donated the skin cells used in the therapeutic cloning study. David Cyranoski summarizes two exciting new studies in his article "Race to Mimic Human Embryonic Stem Cells:" Two much-anticipated scientific firsts announced this week bring the dream of regenerative medicine a step closer...

The avian cost of environmentally friendly architecture

Posted on November 24, 2007
Environmentally friendly buildings are often bird killers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The Mathematics and Science Building, one of Emory University's most environmentally friendly buildings and a hallmark of that school's environmental efforts, has been described as an "avian slaughterhouse...

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on November 21, 2007
A nice image, by way of Feminist Law Professors.

Brain Waves Reveal Intensity of Pain: Neural Signal Offers Objective Measure of Subjective Experience.

Posted on November 18, 2007
On the Neuroethics & Law Blog several months ago, Adam Kolber posted the following:A couple of days ago, the NYT ran an article on the use of real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to treat pain and perhaps a host of other symptoms like addiction and depression...

Biolaw: Law At The Frontiers Of Biology

Posted on November 06, 2007
The Kansas Law Review 2007 Symposium - Biolaw: Law at the Frontiers of BiologyThe past several years have presented a bewildering array of legal issues raising more questions than answers. Should the Food and Drug Administration approve cloned meat for consumption? Are humans patentable? Is it legal for patients to have access to developmental drugs? Should the law allow parents to halt their daughter?s growth using modern scientific techniques? What is the legal status of partial-birth abortion? Are stem cell research and genetic human enhancement legal? How can the current devastating loss of biodiversity be reversed? The recent explosion of the life sciences and biotechnology has challenged traditional laws, and public opinion concerning proper solutions is far from uniform...

The peacock's tail

Posted on October 24, 2007
On a blog called BioLaw, what could be more appropriate than an image of the peacock and his tail in its full splendor?Hat tip to Beyond the Fringe.

Sharing With CIRM Makes Biotech Squirm

Posted on October 10, 2007
The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine ("CIRM"), the now famous institute devoted to promoting embryonic stem cell ("ESC") research, proposed regulations earlier this year that seek to govern how patents, and the revenues they protect, are to be shared between CIRM and the organizations that receive its grants...

Mes cours de bio

Posted on October 02, 2007
Mon dieu, quel vidéo!Version françaiseVersion anglaisePendant mes cours d' SVT en terminaleil y avait une fille assise à mes côtéscomme elle était femelle et que j'étais un mâle,j'ai décidé d'en faire ma fiancée.Mais n'ayant rien suivi de mes cours de bioPour me faire remarquer j'ai fait l'idiot:Je me suis penché vers elle et j'ai déclaréles mots suivants, un peu comme ils venaient:Oh,tel un coccolitophoridécoincé entre le tertiaire et le crétacéles systoles de mon coeur affolém'ont fait comprendre que tu es ma dulcinée...

Name Your Price And Price Your Name

Posted on September 15, 2007
Organisms named after people abound. Thomson's Gazelle (Gazella thomsoni), Heller's Blazingstar (Liatris helleri), and Hungerford's Crawling Water Beetle (Brychius hungerfordi) all advertise their discoverers or honorees in their species name - the second part of their Linnean binomial - instead of supplying useful biological information to supplement their genus name...

Neuroeconomics, Law and Emotions

Posted on August 30, 2007
So, how could neuroeconomics affect law? See, e.g., Terrence Chorvat, Kevin McCabe, Vernon Smith, Law and Neuroeconomics, 13 The Supreme Court Economic Review 35 (2005); Terrence Chorvat and Kevin McCabe, The Brain and the Law, 359 Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, B: Biological Sciences, 1727 (2004); Terrence Chorvat and Kevin McCabe, The Neuroeconomics of Rationality, 80 Chicago Kent Law Review 1235 (2005); and Jedediah Purdy, The Promise (and Limits) of Neuroeconomics, 58 Alabama Law Review 1 (2006)...

A New Book About Neuroeconomics

Posted on August 29, 2007
I just received from Amazon.com a copy of Your Money and Your Brain: How the New Science of Neuroeconomics Can Help Make You Rich by financial journalist Jason Zweig. We met last Sept. during the annual conference for the Society for Neuroeconomics. He mentioned this book & e-mailed a draft manuscript of it...

Beyond Food and Evil

Posted on August 05, 2007
This is lecture of mine published at 56 Duke L.J. 1581 (2007), and posted on SSRN at http://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1005001:The mass marketing of foods derived from organisms modified through recombinant DNA technology has put extreme pressure on the interpretation and implementation of the United States' basic food safety law, the venerable Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act...

Lula Discovers The Rainforest

Posted on August 02, 2007
Since he was elected President of Brazil in 2003, the policies of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have generally failed to see both the forest and the trees of the Amazon. Brazil hosts the greatest wonder of the sylvan world: the Amazon rainforest. This vast forest is the largest remaining rainforest on earth, and the last refuge of up to a third of all living taxa...

Law, Ethics, and the Life Sciences at the University of Louisville

Posted on July 10, 2007
The University of Louisville's Brandeis School of Law - whose new dean is BioLaw luminary James Chen - has announced that it will hold the first annual conference on Law, Ethics, and the Life Sciences on October 26-27, 2007. Topics and scholars will span the fields of law, environmental science, information technology, health sciences, and bioethics, exploring both connections and divisions between these disciplines...