After a long summer holiday, which I mostly spent working at The Mediecentre, my thirst for new knowledge has again grown big - and starting to study therefore feels really good. This term I will be following courses in inorganic chemistry, chemical thermodynamics and basic mechanics. So far, especially inorganic chemistry appears to be in the middle of my sphere of interest. It starts with a basic look at orbital theory and the Schrödinger wave equation, which is really fascinating stuff. Also, the lecturer does research on Molecular Modelling, a topic that is a possible candidate for my Master thesis, which in itself is inspiring.
Monthly Archive for August, 2006
Do you think your own thoughts or do you blindly follow others?
General, dein Tank ist ein starker Wagen.
Er bricht einen Wald nieder und zermalmt hundert Menschen.
Aber er hat einen Fehler:
Er braucht einen Fahrer.
General, dein Bomberflugzeug ist stark.
Es fliegt schneller als ein Sturm und trägt mehr als ein Elefant.
Aber es hat einen Fehler:
Es braucht einen Monteur.
General, der Mensch ist sehr brauchbar.
Er kann fliegen und er kann töten.
Aber er hat einen Fehler:
Er kann denken.
- Bertolt Brecht
100 years ago the Wright brothers were granted a pantent for a flying machine - a patent that turned out to include almost every man-made vehicle that could fly. A few years earlier Guglielmo Marconi was granted a patent on radio waves. It’s needless to say how these patents obstructed further research and development. Regarding the airplane-patent, the US government made a short process in 1917, with the World War I underway. Marconi’s patent on radio waves was claimed invalid by the US Supreme Court in 1943.
Unfortunately we doesn’t seem to have learned much from the last century’s patent stupidities. Until recently, it was not possible to patent living organisms, which were regarded as discoveries of nature and therefore unpatentable. In 1980, however, this all changed. The US Supreme Cour ruled that a living organism, a bacterium that could digest oil, could be patented. Today we have lots of patens on life: on plants, animals, genes and smaller parts of DNA.
Patents on medicines is another sad story, causing the deaths of poor people each day. Those who defend pharmaceutical patents, argue that the research of new medicines is so expensive that the pharmaceutical companies need their patents to survive. The question to ask here is if patenting is the only way to raise money for medical research? Today it’s already the public sector that pays for the bulk of drugs used in Europe, thanks to various systems for universal medical coverage. So today it’s (at least in most European countries) already the government who pay for most of the medical research (by buying patented medicines). What if the government instead could fund the pharmaceutical research directly, with the clause that the results must be made freely available? This idea is promoted by the swedish Pirate Party.